by Bruce Kading
“Sure. You can trust me to tell you everything.”
“I thought I could. Just relax and tell it at your own pace.”
“OK, I appreciate it, Charlie.”
“After we talked I pulled your personnel file and saw that on your application you identified Michael ‘Hayden’ as your father, and you didn’t mention that he ever worked for the federal government.”
“I was pretty sure that if they’d known I was the son of a federal agent, they would have checked into his background and I wouldn’t have been hired.”
“That’s a reasonable assumption.”
“So I had to say that I had no relatives who had been employed by the federal government, except my mother. I knew they would interview her as part of the background investigation, and she agreed not to mention that my father had worked for INS if they didn’t bring it up and, fortunately, they didn’t. She thought I was crazy for wanting to do this work, and I couldn’t tell her the truth—that I had to find out what really happened—because I didn’t want her to know how it haunted me. But I couldn’t see any way to get the job without concealing his connection to INS.”
“They could charge you with making a false statement on the application, though I doubt it would come to that,” said McCloud evenly. “Your dismissal would probably be sufficient.”
“Yeah, they’d have to fire me.” Hayden searched McCloud’s passive face a moment before continuing. “Anyway, I knew there was a risk that you or somebody else would find out once I started digging into it . . . and I know you’re in an awkward position. If you feel you need to tell somebody, I’ll understand.”
“I’ll let you know if I need to do that . . . after I hear more.”
Nick looked out the window for a moment to collect his thoughts. “Well, I guess it all started with my mother. She’s the one who wanted my father to take the job with INS. He was working as a social worker at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Maywood, and she was a secretary at the DEA down here in the Loop. She heard about the job openings at INS, and I think she liked the idea of my father being in law enforcement. She seemed to be impressed with the DEA agents she worked with and thought his job as a social worker sounded dull, though I don’t know that he ever complained about it. He had a master’s degree in social work, so it was what he was trained for, and I have a feeling he was pretty good at it. But the INS job paid more because of overtime, and my mother was always concerned about money. So he took the job at least partially to please her. I have to say I’ve wondered how my parents ended up together in the first place. My dad was more of a thinker and did a lot of reading. Maybe it was physical attraction they took for love, because they didn’t seem to have much in common.
“Anyway, things were going along well enough between them as far as I could tell until that night in March. I think I was twelve at the time. I had gone to bed already, but I heard a car pull up and looked out the window from the second floor. It was snowing a little, and somebody was dropping off my dad. I knew he was working a late shift that day, and I didn’t think much about it. So he comes in the back way, and I had my door open upstairs and I hear him talking to my mother in the kitchen. And he says, ‘Joyce, something terrible has happened.’ They sat down, and he talked kind of low so I couldn’t hear everything, but I remember him saying an agent and another guy had been shot and killed. The name Buck Tatum was mentioned as one of the agents involved. For some reason that name stuck in my mind. Anyway, after he told her what happened, it got real quiet and Dad said, ‘Well, I did the best I could do. I wish I could have done more,’ and I was waiting to hear something comforting from my mother, but I don’t think she said anything. There was just an awkward silence.
“The next day I asked him about it, and he seemed surprised that I’d heard them talking. And he told me that an arrest got out of control, that an agent had been killed, and Buck Tatum had shot and killed a guy from Argentina. He said something like, ‘It was a terrible thing, but it sometimes happens in this line of work. You just have to deal with it as best you can.’ That was about all he said.
“But starting from that point, everything was different between my parents. They seemed to stop talking to each other, and my mother became very quiet and withdrawn. It was like she was ashamed of him. My dad wasn’t the same either, although at first he seemed to be OK, and then gradually he became more distant, probably because he was worried about losing his job, which he did about two months later.”
“So you were an only child?” asked McCloud.
“Yes. Much later I asked my mother why they didn’t have more kids, and she said my father wanted more, but she wasn’t ready, which is not surprising because I always had the feeling that she didn’t really enjoy being a mother.
“So my father was suddenly out of work, and I remember that he talked about it as if he was better off doing something else. Nobody ever said that he was fired from the job, but even though I was young I could tell what happened. Pretty quickly he got a job unloading trucks, which was hard work but the pay was OK, and my mother was still working for the DEA. But within a couple of months he told me he was moving out; that he and my mother had to live apart for a while. He asked me if I wanted to live with him, and I was a little surprised that my mother would be OK with that. But she wanted to be alone, so I moved in with Dad, which was fine because my father was just a warmer and more supportive person by nature. We were living in Forest Park at the time, and he got a small apartment only a couple miles away so I could stay in the same school.
“But my dad was having a tough time. He got home from work exhausted, and he tried to hide it, but he seemed depressed . . . kind of emotionally fragile. I think his confidence had been shattered—first the shooting and losing his job, then my mother wanting the separation. It got worse when my mother asked for a divorce. After that, he just seemed completely dispirited. But I still wanted to live there with him instead of with my mother. Then one weekend there was a series of phone calls between them. I couldn’t hear what was said, though my father raised his voice a couple of times, which was unusual. The next day, out of nowhere, he told me that he wanted to scout things out in Portland, Oregon. For some reason he thought it was a good place to get a fresh start, and he said that if I wanted to join him later out there, I could. I didn’t know what to think because I’d never been there, but the idea of moving didn’t seem too bad. Anyway, a few days later he dropped me off at my mother’s place and said he would be in touch within a couple of weeks.
“But I never talked to him again. About a week later my mother and I were sitting in the living room and the phone rang and I answered it. It was a police officer calling from Portland. Somehow I knew why he was calling. I asked him if my dad was OK, and he didn’t answer—just asked to talk to my mother. I went to my bedroom, feeling sick to my stomach. And then I heard my mother crying. She eventually came into my bedroom and told me that Dad had died. Later I found out he’d hanged himself in his room at the YMCA.
“My dad may not have been the strongest person around, but he was a good man, and I missed him a lot. My mother got over it quicker than I did, and that angered me . . . that it didn’t seem to affect her as much. She quit her job at the DEA and started a career in real estate and did quite well. She had her occasional boyfriends, and they were nice to me in a distant sort of way. When I started high school she decided that we should both change our last names to her maiden name. I didn’t want to, but she insisted, telling me that it was the perfect time to make a switch. I had the feeling that she was still somehow ashamed about her connection to Dad; like she wanted to leave him completely behind. We had a decent relationship, Mom and I. We weren’t at each other’s throats, but it was more like living with an aunt who had no choice but to care for an abandoned nephew. It was OK with me, though, because I was independent and pretty self-sufficient as I went through high school and college. I was lucky because I was interested in my studies, especially history and lit
erature, and I got involved in sports, mainly baseball. Most of my friends were guys I met playing sports.
“But as the years passed, I became more and more curious about where all the problems seemed to start for my father. I kept wondering—what exactly happened that night? My mother had not gone after details as far as I knew, and simply assumed when they fired him that he’d not done enough to prevent Kelso’s death. At one point she said he was too gentle and civilized a person for law enforcement work. To her the fact that he’d been fired suggested he’d failed, but a ‘suggestion’ wasn’t going to satisfy me, and I had to have as many details as possible. The name change to Hayden made it possible to get hired, and I thought being on the inside was the only way to find the truth. My plan was to stay at INS long enough to find out what really happened and then go on with my life. But when I found how much I liked the work, I came up with reasons not to look further into it. And I began to realize that I had a powerful need to prove that I could do the job well, regardless of whether my father had. That became more important for a while than learning more about the shooting . . . until Payton said a piece of the puzzle seemed to be missing. Then I had to know the truth, no matter what might happen to me and my career. That’s when I reached out to you to get the file, though I knew you might figure it out.”
Hayden paused. He felt relieved to have told somebody but was suddenly very tired. He peered out the window as a cab sped by, its red taillights sailing smoothly through the night. “That’s pretty much it, Charlie,” he said wearily.
“I’m sorry about your father, Nick. I didn’t have much contact with him, but he seemed like a good guy. I wish I’d known him better.”
“You two would probably have gotten along well together.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
McCloud pulled a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket and passed it across the table. “This was all I could find,” he said. “I couldn’t get a street address.”
Hayden opened it to find a handwritten note that read, “Buck Tatum, PO Box 133, Hollins, Florida.”
10
The voice was so loud that she held the phone away from her ear.
“It’s about time this country stands up and doesn’t take this shit anymore,” the man growled. “These damn wetbacks come across the border; next thing you know they’re taking good jobs from American citizens. Like this guy I just told you about.”
Rita Bustos, a petite, middle-aged woman with a billow of black hair and rimless reading glasses, sat in a corner of area control, her desk covered with stacks of leads she’d written up. She’d taken thousands of such calls from discontented workers over the previous ten years.
“What is his job at the plant, sir?” she asked politely.
“They just made him a damn foreman, for chrissakes,” the man said. “Been here less than four years and already he’s in management. Hell, I’ve been workin’ there eight years. Guess I’m not the right color. I ain’t black, brown, or yellow, so I ain’t worth shit!” She carefully took down the information, and then remembered Hayden’s request that she ask all callers what they knew about phony documents.
“Does he have counterfeit documents—a green card or social security card?”
“Course he does. They all do. What a laugh!” he said, letting out a bitter cackle. “I’ve heard about guys selling ’em in bars around here.”
“Do you know who sells them, sir?”
“No, I don’t know any names,” he said. “But a couple of years ago I heard some Mexicans flappin’ their jaws about this bar called the El Paladio or El Palacio or somethin’ like that. I guess that’s where they go for the documents. It’s over on Sheridan . . . a tonk bar.”
“But you don’t know who sells the cards at this bar?”
“How would I know that? I don’t go to tonk bars,” he barked. “Hey, I’m calling about this one guy, is all, and you’re askin’ me about all this other stuff! It’s this guy I want picked up!”
“Yes, sir, I understand. I just need to get all the information you have. It helps us do our job.”
“Well, I’m an American citizen. I want this damn wetback picked up and I want him picked up now!”
“Can you give me your name and number so an agent can call you if there are any other questions, sir?”
“You got enough information. Remember, he’s driving a tan Fairlane.”
“Yes, I have that.”
“And listen, if he’s not picked up damn quick, I’ll call my senator and tell him you all ain’t doin’ your jobs down there. You hear me?”
Rita said nothing.
“You got it?” he demanded.
“We have it. Thank you, sir.”
Rita placed the report on a far corner of her desk. Just before leaving that day, she walked down to fraud and left it on Nick Hayden’s desk.
* * *
Hayden and Kane sat in the shadow of the “L” tracks, the trains thundering overhead. Between trains it was quiet, a morning breeze gently stirring a line of trees on the parkway. Kane had parked between a pair of abandoned cars about fifty yards south of the entrance to the Poindexter plant. They were watching the tan Fairlane that had been mentioned in the tip Hayden had received from Rita the day before. It was thought to belong to an illegal Mexican named Miguel Chavez, who worked at the plant as a low-level shop supervisor. The rusted-out Fairlane was parked with a few other vehicles in a makeshift lot beneath the tracks. At seven o’clock, they could hear the distant ring of the shift bell from inside the plant.
Hayden, in the passenger seat, suddenly felt the presence of a figure to his right: a middle-aged man with muttonchop sideburns, wearing a knee-length overcoat and a pair of ragged construction boots. The man swayed unsteadily as he squinted to focus on the car with two men inside.
“Hey, are you guys a couple of homos or what?” the man bellowed, looking around for somebody with whom to share his discovery. He staggered in short steps to the front of the vehicle to get a better look.
Hayden grimaced. “Great, our guy is coming out in a few seconds and this wino shows up. I’ll get rid of him.” He got out of the car and advanced toward the drunk, who looked up with frightened eyes, and then tried false bravado.
“Who ’n hell do ya think—” he sputtered, but Hayden had grabbed his coat at the back of the neck and was walking him to the sidewalk. The man instantly became docile. “Hey, I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”
Hayden launched the drunk headfirst into a clump of bushes adjacent to the parking area. The man fell awkwardly into them, a pint bottle of liquor falling out of his coat pocket. Hayden kicked the bottle, and it skidded down the sidewalk.
“Get the hell out of here,” ordered Hayden. “If you come back, I’ll take your bottle and throw you in jail.”
The man slowly extracted himself and began to walk away shakily. Hayden gave him a swift kick in the butt, and the man staggered down the sidewalk, muttering and casting angry glances over his shoulder. Silence returned to the street as Hayden got back in the car.
“Never a dull moment,” said Kane, grinning.
A few minutes later a small cluster of men, some Anglo and some Hispanic, emerged from the alley next to the plant. They dispersed quickly, some climbing the stairs to the “L” platform, others retrieving cars parked on the street or beneath the tracks. Then a dark-skinned man appeared in the alley, an unhurried dignity in his gait. He made his way to the Fairlane, got in, and slowly pulled away.
“Let him drive off,” said Hayden. “We can keep a loose tail on him until he stops somewhere.”
Irritated with his partner’s recent habit of issuing orders, Kane defiantly pulled the Camaro right up behind the Fairlane at a stop sign. They could see the driver looking curiously in the rearview mirror.
“So much for a loose tail,” said Hayden. “Now he’s watching us. What’s the idea?”
“Just because he looks at us doesn’t mean anything,” said Kane coolly.
They followed the car as it moved smoothly through the traffic along Montrose Avenue and then south on Ashland. Kane dropped back and another car cut in, separating them from the Fairlane. As they came to a stop at a red light, he rhythmically tapped his fingers on the steering wheel while both of them leered at two young women in short skirts waiting at a bus stop. The light changed, and they passed through the intersection.
“This is kind of a long shot, isn’t it?” said Kane. “All we know is this guy might be wet, might have phony documents, and might have gotten them from somebody at a bar on Sheridan.”
“That’s why we’re out here—to find out if it’s good information . . . if he cooperates. Anyway, what else have we got?”
A couple of miles farther down Ashland Avenue, the Fairlane veered sharply into a grocery store parking lot.
“He’s trying to find out if we’re tailing him,” said Hayden. “Stay back unless he gets out of the vehicle. We don’t want him to take off in the car.”
Kane smiled. He would have been delighted if the car had sped off so he could pull out the flashing light, get the siren going, and begin weaving wildly through traffic.
As they entered the lot in front of the store, they watched the man pull into a parking space, hop out, and walk briskly toward a pay phone near the corner of the building. He picked up the receiver and for a moment, as they came closer, seemed to be making a call. The man glanced over his shoulder, spotted the vehicle bearing down on him, and a look of alarm crossed his face. He dropped the receiver, ran to the nearby corner of the building, and began to fight desperately through a cluster of bushes that hugged the side of the building—trying to reach the alley behind the store.
Nick leaped from the car in pursuit. Kane flipped on the siren and sped out of the lot to intercept the man in the alley.
Chasing people had been fun for the first year or so, but now it aroused hostility in Hayden. How dare they defy his authority? He pushed through the bushes—purple berries smearing his leather jacket. This son of a bitch was going to pay, he thought, pushing through the sharp branches with his elbows. Finally he burst free of the bushes and into the alley. To his left he saw the momentary flash of a green jacket as it disappeared through a space between the garages that lined the alley. Where the hell was Kane?