The Third Rail mk-3

by Michael Harvey

  “And the apartment?”

  “Should have some information in the morning. By the way, the morning should be a lot of fun. City’s putting uniforms on al the CTA platforms. Plainclothes on board the buses.”

  “That’s a lot of manpower.”

  “It gets better. The Bureau wants to put its own teams up on the rooftops. From Evanston to Ninety-fifth. North, south, east, and west. Along every mile of L track.”

  “Snipers?”

  “Whole nine yards. Balaclava, painted faces, rifles with scopes, al that crap.”

  “Maybe they’l just scare the shit out of these guys.”

  “Or the half mil ion people who use the L every day. Wilson didn’t like it. Said he wasn’t going to turn his city into some unholy fucking vision of Baghdad.”

  “He’l be changing his tune if another body turns up,” I said.

  Rodriguez grunted. We slipped across the tip of Goose Island, clattered over Clybourn Avenue, and took a left onto Lincoln.

  “What’s the story with Lawson?” I said.

  Rodriguez chuckled. “Thought you might get to that. They cal her Sister Katherine.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You remember Father Mark?”

  “Doesn’t ring a bel.”

  “Father Mark was the pastor at St. Cecilia’s over on the Southwest Side. Took the parish for a little more than a mil ion dol ars over five years.”

  “Heartwarming.”

  “Yeah, he was shorting the col ection money, using parish credit cards, everything. Lawson was the one who got onto him. Spent six months hip deep in church records looking for loose cash. Turns out this guy had a second home in California and three Beemers. When Lawson grabbed him, he was planning to sel the rectory and buy himself a boat.”

  “That’s her big score?”

  “That’s what she’s known for.”

  “She a climber?” I said.

  “Depends on who you talk to. Some say she’s always wanted to be a player in Washington. Just never made the cut.”

  “And the rest?”

  “One agent who’s been around awhile told me the exact opposite. Says the woman is right where she wants to be. Says she’s got big-time pul downtown, but no one is sure with whom or why.” Rodriguez glanced across the car. “Bottom line, this guy says: ‘Don’t fuck with Katherine. She’l ruin your week.’”

  “I’l keep that in mind.”

  Rodriguez flicked his turn signal, took a right onto Southport Avenue, and pul ed to the corner at Eddy.

  “Tomorrow?” I said and reached for the door handle.

  “Hang on.” Rodriguez kil ed the engine. My hand slipped off the handle, and I pushed back in my seat.

  “What is it?”

  “You tel me,” Rodriguez said.

  I tried to hide behind a smile that was too quick for its own good. My friend the detective was having none of it.

  “Been two months since you went out to L.A. Haven’t seen you. Talked to you. Nobody’s seen you, except Rachel.”

  “People get busy.”

  “Yeah, wel, that’s fine. But I stil need to know you’re okay for this.”

  “You think L.A.’s gonna keep me from the job?”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “Then what are you saying.” I felt the screws tighten in my voice, the pressure build behind my eyes.

  “Your father passed. You went out to L.A. to pick up his ashes and came back empty-handed.”

  “For a guy who doesn’t know much, you’re pretty wel informed.”

  “Losing your dad can be rough, Kel y.”

  “Yeah, he was a real fucking prize.”

  “I lost mine when I was fourteen.”

  I’d known Rodriguez for four years, but didn’t know that. Never thought to ask.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said and looked across the car. The detective’s face was rutted by memory and his voice grew large in the smal space between us.

  “He worked the swing shift at U.S. Steel. One night he was coming out of the plant. Had the key in the car door when a squad car hit the corner on two wheels, chasing a kid in a hot box. The kid’s car bounced my dad off the side of a Buick. Cracked his head open.

  “By the time I got to the ER, the docs had done what they could, which wasn’t much. He couldn’t talk ’cuz of the tubes, and that was probably just about right. But he took my hand and we sat there, waiting. Didn’t take too long, either. Eyes fil ed up with that look. Fucking head went over. And just that quick, my old man was gone.”

  Rodriguez snapped his fingers, a dry sound, and shrugged.

  “Who wants to cry at fourteen, right? But, goddamn, if I didn’t sit down on the floor of that hospital and do exactly that. I didn’t know my dad. Never got a good word out of him, or even a kick in the ass. But he was my dad. And I cried. And it was the right thing to do.”

  Rodriguez was finished then, and we both listened to the weather. There was a storm boiling over the lake, and the wind was rising around us.

  “I’m okay for the job,” I said and hunted for the hint of desperation in my voice.

  Rodriguez nodded. “I believe you. But it’s stil gonna come. Sooner or later. Just because it’s your dad. And that’s how that is. Now get the fuck out of here and get some sleep.”

  I slipped out of the detective’s car and watched it rol into the night. Then I walked down Eddy to Lakewood. My building was painted in strips of hard streetlight. The hawk was rattling garbage cans in an al ey and banging a wooden sign against the side of a tavern. I bundled myself into a doorway and considered cal ing it a day. I was tired and wanted nothing more than to crawl into an early bed. Lately, however, there’d been no percentage in sleep.

  MY CAR WAS parked a half block from Wrigley Field. The Friendly Confines were dark, save for a red neon scrawl atop the main gate, touting regular season tickets, a bargain at a hundred bucks a pop. I turned the car around and drove west. At a stop sign, I pul ed out my cel and punched in a number.

  “Mr. Kel y?”

  “You ever say hel o, Hubert?”

  “Hel o, Mr. Kel y.”

  “Cal me Michael.”

  “I’d prefer Mr. Kel y, if that’s al right.”

  “How you doing?”

  “Okay.”

  “You stil with the county?”

  I had met Hubert Russel at the Cook County Bureau of Land Records. He helped me with some library research on the Chicago fire. Then the twenty-something cyberhacker went virtual to help me catch a kil er.

  “Nah, I left there a few months ago.”

  “’Cuz of me?”

  “Heck, no. I told you. I wanted out of there, so I left.”

  “Good. Listen, you got a couple of minutes to talk?”

  “Right now?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Have anything to do with al the stuff going down today?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  There was a pause. “Where do you want to meet?”

  “How about Filter over on Milwaukee? Maybe early? Eight a.m.?”

  “See you there.”

  “And Hubert?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Bring your laptop.”

  “No kidding.”

  “And al the toys.”

  Hubert Russel laughed. Maybe at me. Maybe not. Then he hung up. I flipped my cel phone shut and steered my car through the night, toward the highway and the sainted Irish of Chicago’s South Side.

  CHAPTER 12

  Nelson closed the red binder he’d been reading from, stood up, and looked out at a mil ion-dol ar view of Chicago’s skyline. He had found the place by accident-a white ghost of a building on the edge of an orgy of gentrification, the last remnants of the city’s Cabrini-Green housing complex, patiently awaiting Mayor Wilson’s wrecking bal. The high-rise stil had heat, stil had electricity, and was forgotten by everyone, save the rats. It was perfect for their time frame. Nelson just had to make sure
Robles was careful. So far, so good. A floorboard creaked, and Nelson turned. His shooter was slouched in the doorway.

  “Cable?” Nelson nodded toward the silent TV set up in the corner.

  Robles smiled and glided across the room. “Relax, old man. We ain’t paying.” Robles reached down and turned up the volume. CNN was stil carrying wal — to-wal coverage of the shootings. The banner headline read: KILLER ON THE CTA.

  “This is so fucking wild.” Robles squatted on the floor and stared at the screen. A picture of a young Latino girl flashed up. The caption pegged her as a sniper victim. The girl was smiling. The talking head said her name was Theresa Pasil as. She was a senior at Whitney Young High School and had just been accepted at Stanford. Now she was dead. Already they were laying out the black and marching through the streets of Pilsen, the city’s largest Latino neighborhood. Nelson turned down the volume on the set.

  “Tel me about today,” he said.

  “Turn it up and we both can learn about it.”

  Nelson turned the set off altogether. They had spoken once by phone after the second shooting, but Robles hadn’t offered up a lot of detail.

  “You didn’t tel me about the building manager,” Nelson said.

  “What about him?”

  “The news said he was found inside the apartment.”

  Robles took a sip from a bottle of water. “Dude came in, started sniffing around. I took him with the knife.”

  “No anger?”

  The smile moved easily across Robles’ face. “Knife went in and the old bastard dropped.”

  “What about Kel y?”

  “What about him? I already told you. He tracked your footprints down the al ey. I put the gun on him.”

  “And?”

  “And what? Didn’t seem to bother him much.” Robles pul ed out a long knife and pointed it at a locked door on the other side of the room. “She stil here?”

  “She’s here.”

  “Can I have her?”

  “What did I tel you?”

  “You said I could have her.”

  “Later.”

  Robles drew himself up into a sulk. “I could take her anytime I want.”

  “I know, but you won’t.”

  Robles flicked a wrist and buried his knife a half inch into the wal. He’d done his first kil ing for his country-as a Ranger with the Eighty-second Airborne in Mogadishu. Upon his return to the States his taste for blood only deepened, and trouble began to tick. The military knew something was wrong, which would have been okay if they could have turned it to their advantage. But they couldn’t. So they hit him with a general discharge. After that, he wandered up and down both coasts. Hunting, Robles liked to cal it. By his own count, he’d kil ed maybe a half dozen women before coming to Chicago. Taken a few kids along the way, as wel. Nelson put a stop to al that. He replaced common lust with calculated bloodshed and succeeded where the army had failed, harnessing the violence, molding Robles to suit his purposes. The ex-Ranger was a dangerous, if mostly wil ing, pupil. And even brought his teacher a very special gift.

  “You stil got the case I gave you?” Robles said.

  “Never mind about the case.”

  “But you stil got it.” Robles’ gaze found the cover of the binder Nelson had been reading. It was a classified Pentagon report titled “Terror 2000.”

  Robles reached for it, face lit from within. “What’re you thinking about, old man?”

  Nelson pul ed the binder away. “That’s not your concern.”

  “Who’s the one done the kil ing here?” Robles’ eyes chal enged, and Nelson could feel the anger simmering between them. His mind edged toward the gun in his pocket. Not now. Not yet.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Nelson said.

  “Tel me about the binder.”

  “No.”

  “It has to do with the case I gave you. With the lightbulbs.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Fuck complicated.” Robles pul ed his knife from the wal. The blade flashed between them, and Nelson drifted his hand toward the gun.

  “You gonna use that thing, you better make it count,” Nelson said.

  Robles looked at the knife like he’d never seen it before, then shrugged. “I get it, old man.”

  “Maybe you do.”

  “Dying’s not a problem.” Robles spun the knife in his hands and sank it into the wal a second time. “Just don’t let me see it coming.”

  “That’s it?”

  Robles pointed at the locked door. “And let me do what I want with the girl.”

  “Actual y, that’s the other thing I wanted to talk about.”

  The two men walked over to a window covered in sheer plastic and looked down at what remained of Cabrini-Green’s once-notorious nightlife. In a breezeway, a solitary figure huddled against a stiffening wind, waiting for someone to drive up and buy his drugs. Half a block down, a woman stamped her feet against the cold and smoked a cigarette while a second walked smal circles under a streetlight. After a while the men moved away from the window and made their plans. Then Nelson left. Robles smoked his own cigarette down and looked up at a starless sky. When he was finished, he got a length of rope, some tape, and his knife. He went over to the locked door and opened it with the key. The girl screamed, but only for a minute. After that Robles had al the time in the world. Or at least until Nelson returned.

  CHAPTER 13

  Evergreen Park never changes. Row after row, block after block, the brick bungalows march on, each a story and a half high, each featuring a Post-itsize backyard, each identical to the next save for the number on the front that tel s the mailman where to leave what. I parked at the corner of Albany and Ninety-fourth and walked a half block until I found the house I was looking for. The shades were pul ed tight, and there was no answer when I rang the bel. I took out a card and slipped it under the door.

  I was almost back to my car when the curtain I’d been waiting for twitched next door. It’s the way things work on the Irish South Side-from the cars people drive to the newspapers they tuck under their arms; the cut of their clothes and the length of their hair; the shape of their faces, and, of course, the color of their skin. Al of it is filtered through the curtain that covers over the South Sider’s front window. Tel s people everything they need to know before they ever open their door and bid the stranger a cautious hel o.

  I walked toward the house with the nervous curtain and hoped I’d passed muster. The door cracked its seal even as I reached for the buzzer. I could smel mothbal s and peppermint. A smal pink face peeked out and a pair of bright blue eyes blinked.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m looking for your neighbor, Jim Doherty.”

  The door opened another three inches to reveal a head of white hair.

  “You looking for Jimmy?” the old woman said.

  I nodded. “He’s an old police buddy of mine. Thought I might catch him in.”

  The woman moistened her lips at the new morsel of information. I was now a cop, which helped a lot in this neighborhood.

  “What’s your name?” she said.

  “Michael Kel y.”

  The door creaked al the way open. “Peg McNabb. Come on in.”

  She walked back to a yel ow couch covered in plastic. I sat in a matching yel ow chair, also covered in plastic. A TV ran WGN’s news in the corner with the sound muted. A clock ticked on one wal, and a couple of crucifixes framed a picture of JFK on the opposite wal. Underneath the picture was a smal table, with a Bible and some holy water in a glass bottle. Peg had her dinner, a sliver of gray meat, potatoes, and peas, on a metal tray in front of her.

  “He’s not home,” she said and gummed down a mouthful of spuds.

  “Any idea when he might be back?”

  “Not sure.” Peg cut off a smal piece of meat and chewed it up in quick bites. Then she raised her head and howled, “Denny.”

  Her voice summoned forth two creatures from the darkness beyond the hal way. T
he first was an old man, long and alabaster white, wearing a blue T-shirt and red pajama bottoms. He had a toothpick in his mouth, thick dark glasses perched on his nose, and a can of Old Style hanging loose in one hand. The second figure was an echo of the first, right down to the plastic glasses and beer, except he was thirty years younger.

  “This is Denny and Denny Jr.,” Peg said. “Junior’s just visiting.”

  I nodded at the pair of them. Life sometimes moved in a closed and curious circle on the South Side.

  “He’s looking for Jim.” Peg’s duty done, she turned up the volume on the TV. Tom Skil ing was tel ing us it was stil warm for this time of year, but probably going to get colder. Peg grumbled at Tom under her breath. Her husband took a seat on the couch. Her son wandered back to the kitchen and, presumably, dinner.

  “You looking for Jimmy?” Denny McNabb wrinkled his already wrinkled forehead.

  “He’s an old cop buddy of mine,” I said.

  “Chicago cop?”

  “Yeah. I was on the force with Jim just before he retired.”

  “I was gonna say, you’re kind of young to have been working with old Jim.”

  Denny grinned at his own cleverness and looked over to his wife for a bit of silent applause. Peg ignored him, as the five-day forecast was on. The old man found some solace in his can of beer and returned to our conversation.

  “Jimmy comes and goes. We always say he’s retired, but you’d never know it. On the go, al the time.”

  I nodded. “Any idea when he might be back in town?”

  “I didn’t say he was out of town.”

  “Is he in town?”

  “Saw him this morning, didn’t we?” Peg bobbed her head in confirmation, and Denny Sr. continued, “He waved hel o. Jumped in his car and was off. Wel, speak of the devil.”

  True to his South Side roots, Denny was keeping an eye on the front window. There, through the curtain, was Jim Doherty, large as life, rol ing through the night and up the front walk. Denny pul ed the door open before Doherty had made it halfway to the stoop. I stepped out. My pal shook his head and laughed.

  “Jesus H. Christ. Michael Kel y.” Doherty held out his hand, and I grasped it. The grip was rough and strong.