The Color of Fear

by Thomas Laird

  It’ll delay things for an hour or two, but that’ll be the extent of Chaka’s incarceration.

  I don’t bother with the call to the redheaded Captain. I fool around in the lounge for an hour, staring at Doc with nothing to say to him. I feel just about like crying.

  “We put a twenty-four hour tail on this shithead now that we’ve found him. Eventually he’ll go back to his crib and we’ll get hold of that Uzi. Then we’ll have something on him. This wasn’t all for nothing, Jimmy. At least we located the cocksucker.”

  We walk back to the interview room and I spring Julius Johnson without further discussion.

  “We really ought to pursue harassment and false arrest, but Julius doesn’t want any more trouble this evening. You already ruined his night. He had very expensive tickets to that basketball game.”

  “Don’t you ever listen to the shit you say, Walter? Don’t you ever want to laugh like hell at what you’re saying?” Doc demands.

  The good counselor refrains from a response. He and his client take a walk.

  *

  Chaka is clever. He’s no dope like Creel, who let Walter do all his talking and thinking for him. Julius heads straight for Rashaan Abu Riad’s bungalow. Doc and I both know there will be no guns inside that house. Riad’s not an idiot, so I don’t waste a judge’s time and ink by asking for a search warrant to Bobby Wells’ crib.

  “We’ll have to wait until he goes home again,” I tell Gibron.

  “Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again.”

  “Thomas Who?”

  I know who Wolfe was, and Doc knows that I know. It’s a little illiteracy game I play with him.

  “When he goes back to wherever he’s got it stored, we pinch him,” Doc resumes.

  “What if he threw the gun in the Lake?” I ask.

  “Not an expensive piece of weaponry like that. All the time and trouble it took some Israeli gunsmith to work his magic on that piece, not to mention the cost. Nah, Chaka doesn’t ditch his main squeeze. He probably sleeps with the automatic little bitch instead of with the human variety of companion. This kid’s a killer, James. He doesn’t let go of the tool of his trade. He probably strokes that little barrel just as if it’s his tiny little sckwantz.”

  “He could outwait us.”

  “Nah. Wrong again, Jimmy. Chaka’s a working stiff. He’ll need to retrieve his meal ticket very very soon. Trust me.”

  “We better not lose him with the twenty-four tail. I ain’t going to have any sense of humor about the prick who cops zees and lets Chaka slip off to his safe house.”

  “We got our best Tacticals on him. All day all night. You worry too much. And we got good people on that piece of poop Creel, too.”

  He leads me out of his office and he heads us toward the west suburbs and the grungiest bar in Berwyn.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  We stake out Chaka along with the Tacticals, but we rarely see Julius Johnson emerge from Bobby Wells’ bungalow. It’s as if he’s buried inside. He has only popped out into daylight three times in two weeks. When he does come out, he hasn’t gone very far. Just out to a rib joint and a movie or two. And we’ve been babysitting him everywhere he goes. He’s never left unattended, so we haven’t made him trying to get to where his fucking coffin lies, the fucking little vampire.

  Doc says he’ll make his move soon. We’re cramping his style, so he’ll have to try a diversion to lose us. That’s why there are four police on him wherever he ventures.

  Rashaan Abu Riad gives us the glare when he leaves his house. He knows who we are, of course, and where we’re parked. It’s still his hood and not ours. But the coppers smile and wish him a good day as he walks by us toward his new black Lexus. He owns a red one, too.

  “How many snorts you think those rides cost him?” Doc grins.

  “Is this cheesedick ever going to surface? It’s been a week.”

  “He’ll rise with the full moon. He’s a nosferatu, just like you said, Jimmy.”

  Doc and I listen to the Sox or the Cubs on the battery radio we take along with us on stakeouts. The Bulls have already swept four for their fourth championship, so there’s nothing else to listen to. Once in a while we turn on an Evanston college station that plays twenty-four hours of jazz. The smell of dead perch is wafting at us from the East from the Lake. That tidal pool that Chicago seems to have crawled out of.

  “He’ll come out... As I speak and breathe, James.”

  Chaka appears at the front door of Rashaan’s bungalow. It’s 2:30 A.M., and I was just about to cop zees for an hour or so while Doc stood watch.

  “Shit. Looks like I miss my nap,” I tell my partner.

  Julius Johnson doesn’t even look our way, a half block south of him down the street. There’s another patrol car in the alley behind Wells’ house, too. I radio to them that Chaka is on the move. They reply that they’re on him now, with us.

  He’s got the banger leather coat and he’s wearing shades in the middle of the night. Maybe I was right. Maybe the motherfucker is Dracula.

  He dude-bops his way to a’95 Camaro that’s parked down the block. We watch him strut his way to the ride. Then Doc starts up the Taurus. He doesn’t turn the lights on until Chaka pulls away from the curb.

  We’re playing the parallel pursuit with this kid, hoping he’ll become overconfident when he thinks he’s lost one of the two cars following him. And in three more blocks there’ll be a third car full of coppers pulling a triangular pursuit on him. He may know about the car in the alley, but he doesn’t know about the new guy who’s about to join the chase.

  A cloud passes over Doc’s face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Did Chaka grow, lately?”

  “What do you mean, Doc?”

  “Last time we saw him he was just a shade under six feet. This Chaka is more like six-two.”

  “Jesus H. Christ.”

  Doc wheels the car in a U-turn. We tell the other two squads to maintain the surveillance on the man in the Camaro. But when we return to Bobby Wells’ house, we note that both of the brand new Lexuses are gone.

  Doc puts out the call for an all points on the expensive car that belongs to Abu Riad. We try to move toward the north, the direction the car was pointed when we left, but we go a few blocks and find no sign. We drive around in circles. I’d like to take out my pistols and put a number of big holes in Abu Riad’s front window.

  The call comes in in just five minutes that someone’s made the Lexus. We’re lucky it’s a red vehicle and that there’s a highly noticeable gangbanger driving a yuppie mobile.

  Some copper on south Halsted street made the sighting. I’ll buy him a pitcher of his choice if we catch back up with Julius Johnson, I promise myself.

  We’re behind the real Chaka in just under ten minutes. He’s headed south on Halsted. We’re in the heart of Blackstone Ranger territory at present and I feel I should call for backup. But I’m too busy navigating for Doc.

  “He’s taking a right on 63rd Street. He’s headed east.”

  Doc smiles at the obvious.

  “What’s he doing this far south?” I ask my partner.

  “Maybe he’s got a cousin. Maybe it’s some snatch he knows.”

  We drive until we reach Ashland Avenue, and then the Lexus heads south again.

  “Is this prick leading us on the goosey goose chase, this motherfucker?” I blurt.

  “No. I think he’s got a place he’s going to light. I don’t think he’s made us. I think he’s sure we all followed that damn decoy.”

  “Hadn’t been for your acute sense of heighth, we’d still be chasing our weewees.”

  At 72nd Street, he turns left and proceeds to Laflin Street. He turns one more right and stops, finally, mid-block on 73rd and Laflin. The two of us give him a half block of separation, and then we call for backup.

  “We need to get a judge out of bed, Doc. Get on the blower and get us some paperwork. We don’t want Walter to have an out wi
th an illegal search.”

  Doc makes the call. The communications officer says he’ll get back with the information as soon as he can.

  We wait in the car for ten minutes. The paperwork is en route to us with the backup, the dispatcher tells us.

  We see a light come on through a window at the front of the third floor of the apartment building Chaka entered. We get out of the car as soon as the unmarked patrol car pulls up next to us here on Laflin Street.

  It’s Frank Leary and Johnny Dushane, two brother Homicides. Dushane has the paperwork, the search warrant.

  The four of us trot over to what becomes 7336 S. Laflin. It’s a four flat building. The boxes are marked inside the entrance way, and there’s a light on inside here, amazingly. Leary picks the lock inside the entrance. Then we’re up the stairs toward the third level. We arrive at the door quietly and we listen to what’s happening inside.

  There’s a conversation between Chaka and a female. Sounds like a grown woman. Then there’s a wail emanating out of the apartment.

  “See what you done?”

  We just barely make out the woman’s words.

  The child is crying out loudly now, and the woman is trying to quiet the infant.

  Dushane pounds on the door. Leary has left us to protect the rear exit to the building. Chaka opens the door to the flat without a protest.

  “The hell you want?”

  “We have a search warrant for these premises,” I tell him as I show him the paper.

  “The hell you want to search this place for?” he demands.

  “Read the goddam sheet, Chaka,” Doc leers.

  He begins to read it to make sure we’re only looking for the Uzi or for any kind of weapon. Dushane finds a .32 pistol in the dresser drawer inside the bedroom. The woman is watching me with unveiled hatred.

  “Whatchyou comin’ inside my home at this hour for?”

  She is bigger than Chaka. Perhaps six-three. Big shoulders. You can be quite certain she could kick his skinny ass if it got down to fisticuffs.

  “Who are you, ma’am? What’s your name?” Doc asks.

  “None of your gottam business.”

  “You tell me now or we take you, the baby, and lover’s nuts down to the downtown office. So?”

  “I’m... LaTasha Johnson.”

  “You’re his wife?” Doc wants to know.

  “Hell no. I’m his sister, gottam it!”

  “What’s your brother doing down here at this hour of the morning?” I ask her.

  “My brother take care of me and my baby. You all been followin’ him, he say. Cain’t get away from you ‘cept to try and sneak out at 3:00 in the mawnin’.”

  I have to believe her before she says another word, but she lets loose a tirade about how she’s going to call our boss and have our badges for an illegal search. Then Doc steps in her face.

  “You got a card for this .32?”

  That shuts her up.

  “Looks like we’re all going downtown right now afterall,” Gibron tells us.

  *

  The woman and the baby ride with Dushane and Leary. Chaka goes downtown with Doc and me.

  When we arrive, and after we’ve spent a half hour asking questions, we find out it’s the brother’s gun. So we give his sister and infant a free lift back to the southside.

  Chaka wants to talk to his attorney again. So we drag Walter out of his slumbers and he ambles into the interrogation room at 4:35 A.M. I wonder if this guy charges overtime.

  When we investigate, we find that Chaka has been charged with no prior felonies. It’s all been juvy chickenshit, up until now. He’s never had major heat splashed up his ass.

  “This is an unregistered firearm,” I tell the counselor. “Chaka says it’s his.”

  “Did you read him his rights?”

  “Of course,” Doc says. But I don’t remember either of us Miranda-izing Julius Johnson. Surprisingly, Chaka doesn’t dispute Doc’s claim. It appears he doesn’t remember our mistake, either.

  “Make my bail. You know they gone have me here as long as they can, so why don’t you just find somebody we know who gonna post my bond.”

  The attorney doesn’t dispute the request of his client. He nods curtly at Chaka and then he leaves us.

  “Looks like you’ll be in the bullpen for a little while, here, bro,” Doc smiles widely.

  “You want to tell us why you were at your sister’s this early in the morning?” I query.

  “Y’all want to tell me why y’all won’t let me go nowhere without company?”

  I put my face just six inches from his nose. He’s sitting across from me at the blond, rectangular interrogation table.

  “You killed Andres Dacy, you piece of trash, and I’m going to be there when the bolt pops into place for you.”

  “I already told you everything I’m gonna about that little boy. I had nothin’ to do with—”

  “I’m not questioning you about him, Julius. I’m just telling you. We’re going to find you dirty. It’s just a matter of time. You got nothing else you can do with yourself. You’re a piece of shit. You’re worse than those kiddie molesters. And when you go up, I’m going to make it my business to make sure everybody on the cellblock knows you did a kid. You know what happens to kiddy killers, asshole?”

  “Jimmy,” Doc pleads.

  “I’m through with him... It might take a while to process you, Chaka. See, we aren’t quite through with tossing your sister’s crib. But it was touching to see that you take care of your family. I wonder how it would’ve been for you if it had been her and your nephew crossing the boulevard the day Andres went down.”

  Nothing crosses his countenance, however.

  It’s rare when you run across one of these amoral type perpetrators. Most killers, most criminals, have a pretty fair idea how heinous their crimes are. Knowing they’re dastardly doesn’t stop them from doing the deeds, but at least they’re aware that they’re breaking some kind of code. It’s these occasional spooks who bother me the most. They have no notion that what they do is dirty, that what they do is blasphemous. When they knock someone over, they figure fuck it, fuck them. They were just like objects in nature, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  That’s the blankness I see in this young man’s face. What troubles me also is that he’s a good looking, almost cleancut-looking young adult. And you can tell when he talks that his brain is capable of functioning. Most of these ten cent hoods are braindeads. Not Chaka. This boy could’ve been just about what he wanted to be. But here he is with me and Doc, instead.

  So much for the pop wisdom. We’re going to have to let this lovely human being loose in a matter of hours. Then he’ll be free to try and sneak off and find his weapon once more, and then God help you and me if he tines to take aim at someone else who owes Rashaan Abu Riad a drug debt. Maybe next time he’ll point that thing inside a crowded fast food joint and maybe this time some of those white suburban kids’ll hit the floor. Then it’ll really make big headlines in the newspapers and then politicians’ll demand we spend more money on anti-crime legislation.

  And I’ll still be out here in the streets trying to pick up the trash while all the debate goes on. If you think I’m looking for sympathy, you can toss your natural empathy. I got no explanation for the Chakas and the Creels and the Abu Riads we have.

  But I know a spot in hell where I’d like to park them all.

  *

  “You can’t come over here no more,” she tells me.

  I thought I heard Celia’s voice crack just slightly, but I can’t tell from looking at her face.

  “What’s going on?” I demand.

  “I’m just calling it quits for us, Jimmy P. I can’t handle this anymore.”

  “Handle what anymore, Celia? The hell did I do?”

  We’re sitting at her kitchen table. We just got back from dinner at one of those overpriced suburban hamburger joints with the pretty blonde college coed waitresses.

 
; “Handle us, Jimmy. That’s what I can’t deal with no more.”

  “I asked you once. What did I do?”

  “You didn’t do anything. I’m just gonna do us both a favor and end things now before they get to where neither of us can do anything about anything.”

  “What brought all this on?”

  “Are you happy, Jimmy?”

  “When I’m with you I’m—”

  “You aren’t happy, Jimmy. You want us to be more than we are and I keep telling you we can’t and you keep refusing to buy it and all it’s doing is making you unhappy.”

  “How do you know what’s going on in my head? Do you know what I was like before we were together? Do you know how empty I was when I let go of Erin? And no, you’re no replacement for anybody. You’re not a substitute, dammit. But I was all dried up before you came along, and now you want to throw me back into all that sand and I don’t want to let go of you, Celia.”

  My voice cracks, now. I’m trying to control myself, but I’m losing it steadily, here.

  “You don’t play fair, Jimmy P. I don’t want to hurt you. That’s what I’m trying to stop. Don’t you see? Can’t you understand? Please, Jimmy, you got to go away from me. You got to go away now!”

  I want to remonstrate, but there’s nothing left to say. She’s made up her mind and when she does there’s no changing her direction.

  I get up from her table and I want to tell her one more thing, but I can’t think, now, what that one more thing might be. So I turn and walk out of her kitchenette. It’s a short walk to her front door, but I don’t hear her begging me to stop on my way out.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “I’m getting awfully weary of the ride down here,” Doc grumbles.

  We pull up to that same curb. It’s as if it’s a rerun of all those months ago when we watched the Medical Examiner’s people deal with the remains of a youngster named Andres Dacy. This time, however, it is a little girl and her ‘aunt’ — ‘aunt’ meaning some kind hearted, non-biologically connected woman who decided to give another Cabrini orphan a home.

  This time there is a dead adult and a severely wounded three year old female child. The little girl is missing her left eye. Dr. Gray, the Medical Examiner, informs me of the results of this spray of automatic gunfire as Doc and I arrive on scene.