Miguel's Gift

by Bruce Kading

  The two agents watched as a car pulled into a parking spot on Twenty-Sixth and a man in an orange shirt and a straw cowboy hat walked up and stuck his head inside the passenger window. He and the driver appeared to be negotiating a deal. Looking farther up the street, Kane and Hayden could see at least two other vendors, one at an intersection about half a block away, and the other working from the doorway of an apartment building. The men engaged almost any pedestrian indiscriminately. To passing vehicles they flashed a sign with their thumb and forefinger in the rectangular shape of a card.

  “It’s an open market,” observed Hayden.

  “Yeah, like shooting fish in a barrel,” Kane agreed. “We could go after these guys and flip them against their boss or supplier. Most of them have to be wet.”

  “Right,” said Hayden, lifting the binoculars to his eyes, “but if they don’t cooperate and word gets back to the boss that we’re onto him, he gets nervous and closes down until our detail is over. If they’re just low-level vendors like these guys, they know they won’t get much jail time, so there’s not enough pressure to get them to flip on the boss.”

  The man in the cowboy hat walked to the curb, stuffing bills into his pocket, and the car proceeded down the street.

  “I wonder how many orders he takes before delivering them to the pad where they make the cards,” said Hayden.

  “We’ve got less than two months,” Kane responded. “And we don’t have teams of surveillance units or manpower for wiretaps.”

  “No, but if we can get somebody to go undercover, we have a shot at making a really good case, not just taking foot soldiers off the street. They’re getting sloppy because they don’t think anybody’s working these cases. We have to take a shot at whoever’s behind all this. These clowns couldn’t organize a one-man parade. Look at him!” Hayden was pointing at the cowboy-hatted vendor, who had spotted several girls in a car and swiveled his hips seductively as if dancing with them.

  Kane couldn’t help grinning at the street performer. “I guess we have a little time,” he conceded. “These guys aren’t going anywhere. They’re having too much fun.”

  9

  Hayden left the office, walked swiftly through the fading sunlight on Jackson Boulevard, and turned down a narrow street that was shadowed by tall office buildings. The stores at street level were closed, but the purple neon sign of McGinty’s cast an inviting glow. Glancing through the tavern’s window, he recognized the bearlike shape of Charlie McCloud hunched over the bar, apparently lost in some inner conversation. It had been several weeks since their tense encounter in Charlie’s office, and the casual setting of the bar seemed like a good place not only to clear the air but also to ask an important favor of McCloud.

  McGinty’s had a long mahogany bar, dark wood tables and chairs, and soft lighting. The atmosphere was heavy and masculine—a comfortable refuge for federal agents, many of whose offices were located nearby. It was Wednesday, so the bar was relatively quiet. Tony Bennett crooned softly in the background, enveloping the place in a sort of timeless, sleepy warmth. Hayden recognized a couple of IRS agents at the far end of the bar and a familiar collection of secretaries from the DEA and the US Attorney’s office huddled in a corner. Nick leaned against the bar just inches from McCloud and swung a shoe onto the brass foot rail, giving off a metallic ring, but McCloud was so preoccupied he didn’t react.

  “A wise training officer once told me drinking alone can be dangerous,” whispered Hayden into Charlie’s ear.

  McCloud was momentarily startled—then smiled in recognition and gestured toward the empty stool next to him. “I was picturing myself retired. It used to seem like heaven. But now that it’s closer . . .” His voice trailed off, and he quaffed deeply from his mug of beer. Hayden noticed an empty shot glass in front of McCloud.

  “I would think you’d be relieved to get out.”

  “Everybody thinks that when they’re young.” McCloud paused and, knowing Hayden wouldn’t understand, decided to change the subject. “So, you and Kane making any progress?”

  “It’s only been a few days. We’re getting our bearings. We could take down some vendors on the street right away and work it from the bottom up, but we have a little time.”

  “You’ll need a good informant,” said McCloud, who signaled with his hand to the bartender to bring a beer for Hayden.

  “You know of any we could use?” asked Hayden.

  “Well, I’d be happy to give you one of my old ones. They’re good, but they’ve gone to seed a bit—they’ve got families and jobs. They’d be going in cold. You’re better off looking for one who’s arrived in the last couple of years. They would know who the current players are—maybe even had contact with them.”

  “We’re looking through leads for somebody like that.”

  “Good—you’re better off developing your own informants, unlike the FBI or DEA. They say they’ll borrow—then they steal them.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  McCloud could tell Hayden was distracted and ill at ease. “What’s on your mind, Nick?”

  “I owe you an apology, Charlie. The conversation in your office—I know you were trying to help.”

  McCloud smiled. “It’s OK. You’re a gladiator, right? I was there at one time. Now I’m an over-the-hill pussy who’s afraid of his own shadow. When you’re a gladiator, nobody can tell you shit.” McCloud sipped his beer before continuing. “Some never come out of it. Those guys implode and break into a million pieces.”

  Hayden was surprised that McCloud wasn’t softening his earlier comments. Not wishing to reignite that debate, Nick steered the conversation to a recent incident involving a DEA agent who’d killed a drug dealer in self-defense in an alley off Howard Street. The agent, who was shot in the neck, was now doing better. It was the first use of deadly force by a federal agent in Chicago since the Kelso shooting, and a useful pretext for where Hayden wanted to go.

  They sipped their beers for a moment. Nick had never asked Charlie about the Kelso shooting because of McCloud’s curiosity about the name Hayden when he’d first reported for duty. But now he felt he had to risk it. “By the way, Charlie, what do you know about the shooting in ’74 when Frank Kelso got killed?”

  “I had no direct knowledge—just heard the story that went around the office.”

  “Payton said something didn’t smell right about it, like something got buried.”

  “Something always gets buried. I wasn’t in area control at the time so I wasn’t as familiar with the details as Payton and some others.”

  “It’s frustrating that nobody seems to know the details of how it all went down.” Hayden paused briefly. “You know, I wouldn’t mind seeing a copy of the report on the shooting.”

  “How you gonna do that?”

  “Since you’re a training officer, maybe you could justify getting it for training purposes.”

  “Ah,” said McCloud with a wry smile. “You want me to get it for you.”

  “Only if you can do it without any trouble. It’s not worth sticking your neck out.”

  “Why so much interest?” inquired McCloud.

  “Partly because of what Payton said. An agent died—I’m just interested in what happened.” There was a hint of defensiveness in the shrug of his shoulders and his voice, suggesting that McCloud ought to understand without further explanation. McCloud watched him through the mirror behind the bar, but Hayden just sipped his beer and offered nothing more.

  “Well, it was obviously tough on everyone involved,” said McCloud. “Kelso dies. The wet dies. Trainee lost his job over it. And Buck Tatum . . . poor guy was never the same again.” He paused a moment before continuing. “I don’t blame you for not taking what Willis says at face value.”

  “It’s vague,” said Hayden. “And apparently Tatum wouldn’t talk about it.”

  “Clamming up isn’t unusual after the trauma of a shooting. I guess nobody wanted to push him. The trainee, Landau, was smart but not on
e of the guys. It was pretty tough down there in area control. If you hadn’t been in the Patrol, there wasn’t much room for error. He’d been a social worker or something—that didn’t help with that crew.”

  “Maybe they pinned the shooting on him to dump him.”

  “I don’t know about that, but whatever Landau had to say at the time wouldn’t have been given much weight. A lot of it had to come down to what Tatum said, because I don’t think there were any other witnesses.” McCloud took a swallow of beer and wiped the foam from his mustache.

  “I assume Tatum had to talk to the investigators about it,” said Hayden.

  “Yeah, they would have gotten a statement.” McCloud paused. He suddenly remembered something. “You heard what happened to Landau after he was fired, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, Payton mentioned it.”

  “I don’t know if it had anything to do with the shooting.”

  “Couldn’t have helped.”

  “So, Kelso and the wet die, Tatum is an emotional wreck, and Landau ends up losing his job and killing himself. Not a pretty picture. I was so absorbed in my own cases, I don’t even know who did the shooting investigation.” McCloud paused briefly. “That was around the time my wife left me, so my head was spinning.”

  “That’s understandable,” said Hayden. He could feel McCloud’s eyes studying him.

  “OK, I’ll see what I can do about getting the report,” said McCloud finally. “I’ll have to find the right person up at the regional office. They live to deny requests like this.”

  Hayden took a final swallow of beer and laid money on the bar for McCloud’s next round.

  “I’ll let you know when I get the file,” said McCloud.

  “Thanks, Charlie,” said Nick as he stepped away.

  McCloud watched as Nick went out the door and disappeared into the shadows. He had to admit that something about the Kelso shooting didn’t add up. Just as intriguing, he had a feeling that Hayden was hiding something.

  * * *

  Charlie McCloud’s old friend Hank Balsam had done a five-year stint in the Chicago INS office of investigations and then, in a life-altering pivot, accepted a higher-grade staff position at the regional office in Minneapolis. Soon after arriving, however, he realized that he’d entered a world of surreal, Kafkaesque logic that made sense only to the most jaded, hard-core bureaucrats. Much of his time was now spent reviewing vacancy announcements and planning his escape with the desperate vigor of a soldier tunneling from a prison camp.

  Balsam whispered into the telephone: “If you stay up here too long, you become one of them, Charlie—the hollow eyes, the zombielike devotion to screwing people in the field offices. I feel like I’ve been abducted by freakin’ Martians. It’s frightening.”

  “I warned you, Hank.”

  “Don’t remind me. And listen, I’m still using you as a reference on my applications, OK?”

  “Of course, Hank. Anything I can do to help,” said McCloud sympathetically.

  Balsam didn’t think twice about McCloud’s request for the file on the Kelso shooting. Not wanting to take the time to copy the whole file, and not willing to let a secretary in on the conspiracy, Balsam personally packaged and mailed the original.

  McCloud’s curious mind was finally zeroing in on the case. Any shooting would be traumatic, but why had Buck Tatum’s response been so extreme? He’d completely cut off contact with anybody from INS, been divorced by his wife of twenty years, and, if still alive, was squirreled away somewhere in self-exile, though nobody knew where. Landau was dead . . . now Hayden’s peculiar interest.

  McCloud received the file on Monday, shoved it into his top desk drawer, and waited until early evening so there would be no calls or distractions while reviewing it. After picking up a cup of coffee from the shop across the street, he returned to the deserted office. He then shut off the fluorescent lights in his room, turned on the green-shaded desk lamp, which was easier on his eyes, and removed the file from his desk drawer with the sense of anticipation he used to feel when searching out evidence on a good criminal case.

  CONFIDENTIAL had been stamped diagonally in large black letters across its cover, and a metal-rimmed label identified it as KELSO SHOOTING FILE, CHI 50/001.1974. McCloud started with the supporting documents and exhibits on the left side of the file. It was an old habit—reviewing the physical evidence first and then comparing his analysis of it with that of the case agent, whose report would be on the right side.

  The first item was a copy of a report dated March 9, 1974, from the Chicago police officer who responded to the shooting, scribbled out in longhand and barely readable. McCloud moved his finger down the blocks of information.

  OFFENDER: ANTONIO CANO. Date of birth: 4/20/49. Nationality: Argentina. Residence address: unknown.

  VICTIM: FRANK KELSO. Date of birth: 7/11/34. INS agent, c/o INS office, 219 S. Dearborn St., Chicago, Illinois.

  WITNESSES: MICHAEL LANDAU and WILLIAM TATUM, INS agents, c/o INS office, 219 S. Dearborn St., Chicago, Illinois.

  There was a brief description of the shootings, followed by a statement that the homicide division had taken photos and handled the preliminary evidence collection, but that federal authorities would conduct a thorough follow-up investigation.

  Next in the file was a yellow property envelope containing a stack of black-and-white photos—good quality, six-by-eight-inch images. The first in the stack were of Cano, a young man with high cheekbones and long, blond hair. His body was wedged into a sitting position against a brick wall, his hair matted with streaks of drying blood. There were several photos from different angles, then the close-up photos of Cano’s face, showing a single perforation just above the nose, gunpowder burns on the forehead, and a line of dried blood running along his nose and through his mustache. It appeared to be a direct frontal shot through Cano’s forehead. His pale eyes were half open and glistened from the flash of the camera.

  The photos of Frank Kelso sent a wave of nausea through McCloud. Kelso had been the sort of happy-go-lucky guy who’d clearly found his niche in life. He was often smiling, rarely complained, and drove his partners to frustration with a work ethic that was unmatched by anybody in area control. He had a remarkable knack for ferreting out illegals in a crowd—often able to identify their nationalities based on factors so subtle that even he couldn’t always articulate them. In this case, it would have been difficult to distinguish Cano from any young American with long hair.

  One photo showed Kelso lying flat on his back on the pavement with arms spread straight out, his legs close together, as in a crucifixion pose. His sport coat was unbuttoned, and the shirt beneath it was completely saturated with blood. There was a sharp tear in the shirt’s fabric at the bottom center of his chest, which was swollen—the flesh pressed against the shirt. His black hair, streaked with gray, had fallen in front to his eyebrows and his eyes were shut. The slightest upturn at the corners of his lips added an odd, lighthearted quality to the image, as though Kelso was only playing at being dead.

  McCloud carefully examined a photo of Kelso taken from several feet away that showed the full length of his body. Along Kelso’s left hip, where the open sport coat had fallen away, McCloud could see Kelso’s empty black holster fastened to his belt. He must have been left-handed, thought McCloud. He didn’t remember that about Kelso. Then, looking closely at the shape of the holster, he realized it was backwards—the side facing forward bowed out to enclose the trigger guard. This meant that Kelso was right-handed but had been wearing his gun in a “cross-draw” fashion on his left hip—prohibited because it would take longer to reach in an emergency. Even more important, an assailant could more easily grab the pistol, because the handle would stick out invitingly. McCloud had known a couple of older agents who insisted on wearing their guns that way because they felt it was easier to pull the gun out across their bodies. He wondered how such a crucial piece of information could not have been widely known throughout the office in the w
ake of Kelso’s death, and it made him curious about who had conducted the investigation.

  The coroner’s report indicated Cano had traces of heroin in his bloodstream and a series of needle marks on his left arm. The .357-caliber, hollow-point bullet had exploded in Cano’s brain, causing extensive and irreversible damage—his death quick and relatively painless.

  Kelso had not been so fortunate. He would have been partially conscious for several horrible minutes. As McCloud had expected, and the coroner’s report confirmed, the heart had been pierced by the .38-caliber bullet, and the main coronary artery had been severed, causing massive internal and external bleeding. Kelso had literally felt his life fading away as he lay on the pavement.

  McCloud leaned back in his chair and pictured the scene on Clark Street. Two bodies lay dead or dying on the cold cement, blood covering the sidewalk, a crowd quickly gathering. Landau and Tatum had no doubt called for an ambulance and were ministering to the fallen Kelso. A police squad car or two would have arrived to establish order and sort things out. And then, after the street had been cleared, those first quiet moments for Tatum and Landau to consider what had happened—measuring their degree of guilt or responsibility. The images would be seared permanently into their minds—life forever divided into two eras: before and after the shooting.

  McCloud left the photos scattered on his desk and moved to the next item—an FBI rap sheet that summarized Cano’s known criminal history in the United States:

  March 1969: Armed Robbery; New York City Police Dept.; no disposition

  December 1969: Solicitation of Prostitution; Chicago Police Dept.; dismissed

  January 1972: Armed Robbery; Chicago Police Dept.; TOT INS

  March 1972: INS warrant for deportation issued; Chicago INS office; no disposition

  McCloud had seen countless rap sheets like this one and knew how to read between the lines. INS in New York hadn’t been contacted following Cano’s first arrest, and he skated free on the robbery charge. He came to Chicago, where he got caught in a prostitution sting and was released, the police again not delving into his immigration status. The charge was later dismissed. Then he was arrested for another armed robbery. This time somebody checked his alien status, and he was turned over to INS. The cops would get credit for a felony collar without the paperwork and would hand him over to INS for what they thought would be immediate deportation.