The Color of Fear

by Thomas Laird

  I watch his eyes, and then he sees it.

  “You’re hung on the three bangers. That’s what it is. I thought we went through all that stuff about how you let some of these things go when it becomes obvious... That is what’s troubling you.”

  “Yeah. You’re onto me.”

  “Why don’t you let loose of it? Hundred dollars says that when Bobby Wells takes a hit from us, we’re going to find out he had a hand in it. We take Riad down, we take down those three homicides with him. You want to wager the hundred?”

  “No. You always relieve me of my money. And now you can’t afford to piss away your bucks either. You’re a family man.”

  He’s so domestic that he’s got a picture of Mari and Keesha on his desk in a fancy gold edged frame. I keep all my photos in my wallet.

  Then I remember I don’t have a single picture of Celia.

  “You got to let go of the bad guys sometimes, James. We’ll catch up with whoever it was eventually. But I still got that ‘C’ note on Bobby Wells.”

  “I never fuck with the master.”

  I put my hands up in self defense.

  “Now explain to me again what this roamin’ a clay shit is.”

  He throws his notebook at me, but I duck and it slaps against the wall.

  *

  I’m becoming almost as domestic as Doc is. The next few weeks pass, and I feel as if the knot in my gut is loosened. I’m believing myself about Celia. I’m coming around to having faith in all my instincts that tell me she’s not involved.

  She has me painting the bedroom. It’s the light beige she described for me before. The bedroom stinks of paint, but I’ve never felt the odor was repugnant. It seems fresh to me, somehow. I’ve got a roller and I’m finishing her small ceiling. The walls come next. The bed is covered with an old piece of plastic I use as a drop cloth when I paint at my house, and newspapers cover the carpet.

  “You do very good work.”

  I thank her, but I don’t turn toward her until I finish the last roll across the ceiling. When I do face her, I see she’s wearing only black bikini panties.

  “Oh oh.”

  “What do you mean, ‘oh oh’?” she grins. “Come take a shower with me. We ain’t here to work all goddam day.”

  I descend the five foot aluminum ladder. I put the roller in the pan and I walk over to her.

  “Don’t you touch me until all that latex is scrubbed away. We got the rest of our lives to paint this little place, Jimmy P. But who knows if I’ll catch you in the loving mood from day to day.”

  She leads me into the bathroom, helps me undress, and then she has us both lathered and beneath a warm spray before I can ask her how she figures we’ll ever finish a job if she keeps interrupting me like this.

  *

  It’s midnight and Celia is asleep. I walk into her kitchen.

  The kids and Eleanor have gone to stay with Nick in Elmhurst over the weekend. I’ve been trying to decide whether I should tell my kids who Nick really is, but I haven’t come up with anything final yet.

  I’m supposed to be looking for a can of diet cola, but I find myself staring at the cabinet above the refrigerator. It’s the one place I haven’t been into since Celia’s moved in. I’ve been into the drawers by the sink, I’ve been into the cabinet below the sink, but I’ve never seen her put anything in that slot above the refigerator.

  I pad over to the icebox in my bare feet. The rest of me is bare, as well. Before I dare open the cabinet, I look over my shoulder to see if Celia’s risen and followed me in here.

  I open the door. I reach up and feel around. There is nothing. That’s why I haven’t seen her go into this storage space. Because there’s nothing in the goddam thing. I withdraw my hand.

  As I withdraw it, my fingers feel the edge of something sharp. I slowly secure it in my grip, and I pull it out.

  It is the carving knife. The one I’m sure fits the empty holder in that set of blades I discovered at Cabrini Green, down in the basement.

  What I’m going to do with this thing now is the question. There is no sign of blood or fluid on it as I look on either side of the blade, but I know a quick glance doesn’t prove a damn thing. A lab has to examine it microscopically.

  I walk toward the bedroom, the kitchen knife palmed in my right hand and flush against my side. The coolness of the metal shocks the flesh on my flank.

  I have my old Army AWOL bag with me. It’s at the foot of the bed. I can stow it inside that bag I always bring when I stay the night.

  But Celia will find out that I took the knife. How will I explain why I copped it? She’s innocent, remember?

  I turn quickly and head toward the kitchen.

  “Jimmy? What’re you doing? Come on back to bed. It’s cold and lonely in here. You get back here.”

  I stop in my tracks. I feel my blood stop pumping.

  “I just need to bring back a pop can. I forgot to throw it away. I’ll be right back.”

  “You damn well better hurry, sugar.”

  I walk out to the kitchen and I approach the refrigerator. I look up at the door where this carving knife was hidden. If I don’t return it I don’t believe in her. I believe in all that non-belief I’ve been trained to use in the streets. We’re paid, professional cynics, coppers are. Everybody lies to us. Everybody.

  I’m standing there thinking about opening up that small space when I hear her voice from the bedroom.

  “Jimmy. Jimmy. I ain’t foolin’, now. You hear me, sweetheart?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The southside is traditionally the toughest side of Chicago. At least that’s the way the legend goes. The gangs are badder, the gangbangers are meaner. The people in the streets are tougher. There’s a legend that far fewer southside kids get sexually molested. It’s supposed to be because if a pedophile approaches a southside kid, the kid tells the kiddie bugger to fuck himself and then the kid and ten of his bros jump the motherfucker and ball bat him to death. It’s an amusing piece of city lore or whatever.

  Doc drives today. He’s an ex-resident of this side of the city. He’s from the far southwest side. He knows these mean streets better than I do. Beverly Hills isn’t quite as mean as some of the other byways in this chunk of city. It’s a well-kept black neighborhood, as I said before.

  When we get to his door, a patrolman lets us in. We’ve beaten the Medical Examiner to the scene this time out.

  Wendell lies on the tile of his kitchen floor. He is face down. When I bend over to him, after I put on my latex gloves, I see the bullet hole in the back of his head. It’s just where the neck meets the rear of the skull.

  “Execution style. Professional. I make it to be small caliber, probably a twenty-two.”

  Doc bends next to me and examines the wound.

  “Looks like. A pro job. No prejudice. Just workmanlike. It’s Bobby Wells and his people. They’re big on imitating the way it’s done in the Outfit.”

  You use a .22 because the bullet runs amok after it enters. It tears and zigs and zags and does all kinds of damage. And if you put one where this shooter did, it does enough brain damage that there’s very little hope for survival. One shot and it’s finished. Not much noise. Just a pop sound that no one could hear beyond the walls of Wendell’s apartment. The shooter really wouldn’t need a silencer. Most people wouldn’t even know it was a gunshot. It would sound more like backfire from the local jalopy.

  “Oh, Jimmy. What have we got this time.”

  Doc sounds as weary as I feel. We’re going to have to take the long drive downtown and break the bad news to Mr. Daniel Brego. The Candyman hates hearing bad news.

  *

  “He’s all we really had,” Brego says. The leather chair he’s swiveling on creaks.

  “We’ve got Celia Dacy for the stalking charge,” I remind him.

  “Yeah, and it’s his word against hers, now. You think Walter Evans hasn’t been down this road before?”

  “You mean you aren’t
even going to try and nail him for pulling the piece on Celia and for assaulting her?” Doc asks.

  “Calm down, Doc. Of course I’m not going to let it slide. But it isn’t murder one. This kid’s got no long rap sheet. He could come up with a real sympathetic ear on the bench who wants to give him a chance to redeem himself. It could be a few years in the cage and then probation. This kid’s very sly.”

  “I’m also calling him for the hostage on the El. He pulled his piece on us and threatened the old lady,” I remind Brego.

  “It’s still chump change compared to the big cahuna. I wanted this little prick for the big red one, Jimmy.”

  His chair creaks again and he intertwines his fingers. He appears to be praying. He rocks in the leather recliner, and the leather crackles again.

  Chaka goes away for six months. First offense, so he gets the lightest slap on the wrist I’ve seen in twenty years. I feel like smashing the judge in the mouth. He’s a white male in his early sixties, and he’s up for reelection in a mixed precinct.

  He’s been bought by Bobby Louis Wells, Doc whispers to me as the sentence is handed down. Chaka will be out on the streets in less than those six months because they’re giving him time served, too.

  Brego is outraged. He knows the guy in the robes has been bought, but there’s nothing he can do about it. If it had been a murder trial we probably wouldn’t have drawn a bottom feeder like this crook on the bench. A murder trial brings more publicity, so they have to be sure to run out their thoroughbreds, most of the time. Their heavy hitters. In a simple assault case you get some cartoons instead of a jurist. We wound up with fucking Yosemite Sam. He had the red hair and mustache. All he was missing was the black bandana over his eyes.

  Chaka turns toward Doc and me and he smiles at us as the trial ends. His boss is nowhere in sight, seeing that Walter Evans is no longer his mouthpiece. Why Chaka has so much pull with Rashaan Abu Riad is still a mystery to me. Other than the obvious which says that Bobby Wells would shit his drawers if Chaka went up on murder one because then there would be the possibility that Chaka would try to deal his old boss. Even if we refused a deal, that doesn’t mean he couldn’t try to swing something with the feds. They’d get him off under the federal witness protection thing, and then Chaka gets a free pass and a new address to start shooting people again. Bobby Wells still loses that way, so it’s to his advantage to get rid of Wendell. Now Chaka walks in a few months and he can even go back into the employ of his old boss, Bobby Louis Wells.

  Celia attended the trial. She spoke out against Chaka. But it didn’t matter since the tab had already been paid in advance. Chicago is the home of the fixer. Some you win and some you lose. This one we lose big time.

  When we’re out in the street, I see Chaka walking toward the police van. He’s wearing his black coat. I tell Doc I’ll be right back, and I hurry over to him before my partner can stop me.

  “Hey, Chaka. Wait a minute.”

  I show the van cops my shield and ask to have a minute with him. Then I take him by the sleeve and pull him toward the intersection.

  “What the fuck you think—”

  “Listen, cheesedick. I just want you to remember something.”

  “The fuck you want, Parisi?”

  “You call Celia Dacy, you threaten her or contact her in any way, I’ll kill you myself. I’ll pull out one of those little tape-handled, no traceable guns I’ve got in my locker, and I’ll drop you out on the street. You think anybody’s going to have trouble believing a piece of shit like you got wasted with a Saturday night special?”

  He looks at me without the arrogance. Then I spin around and I let go of him and I walk him back toward the police van. I release him to the patrolman and I walk back to my partner. I turn to Chaka one more time.

  “I’ll be seeing you, cheesedick.”

  He’s watching me, but he doesn’t answer.

  “What was that all about?” Doc asks.

  “I was wishing him a pleasant few months in the shithouse.”

  *

  “I’m afraid, Jimmy. He was gone and now he’s back and I’m afraid.”

  “He isn’t going to hurt you. I’m going to take care of you, Celia.”

  “You can’t be here every minute of every day. He’s back on the street and he promised he’d get back to me.”

  “He won’t. I promise he won’t.”

  I hold her tightly. We’re lying in her bed, looking up at the ceiling.

  “He won’t hurt you again. And he’s not free for long. You can hold me to this one, Celia. We’re going to find that weapon of his and we’re going to match it up to Chaka and put him away forever. You have to believe me. I’m not giving up on him, so don’t give up on me.” She turns toward me and I can feel her warm, humid breath against my cheek.

  “I’m afraid, Jimmy. I’m afraid.”

  I clutch her tighter, and I can feel her shivering.

  *

  I put the knife back in the cabinet above the refrigerator. I stood on that tile for ten straight minutes not knowing what to do, and then I returned it to where I found it. A drastic mistake, I know. I should’ve had it taken to the forensics people and let them put my mind to rest one way or the other, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I have to believe in her. I can’t stop loving her no matter what I think she may have done. And no matter what those three had to do with the murder of Andres, it makes no difference in connection to what she took into her own hands. These were no justifiable homicides. She planned it all out. She carried it out.

  And then she executed the three of them. Loving her doesn’t provide an excuse for Celia. She broke the code, if she did what I hope she didn’t. And here I was with the potential murder weapon in my hand, and I went and slid it back in its hiding place.

  I have the urge to go back and take it once more and this time do the right thing, but I can’t seem to get my legs to slide over the edge of the mattress, and I can’t will my body to get out of this warm bed. The tile is so goddam cold in her kitchen, I tell myself.

  I’ll have to get that blade tested eventually. I’ll have to give in to my conscience that torments me every time I’m with her here. It’ll occur soon enough, but right now I’m going to lie beside her. She’s afraid. I can’t stand to see her this way. That little bastard smiled at Doc and me on his way out to his ride toward a very brief stay in the County Facility. In a matter of weeks he’ll be back. And I don’t know if my threats made any impression on that conscience-less turd.

  Celia’s afraid, and right now it’s all I can handle to take care of her. I’m split between her and my kids. There’s not much left over to handle my case load. I’m tiring the way I should have when I ran to the Lake to pinch Chaka. I’ve got no more marathons left in me.

  Wendell’s dead. He got too close to Celia Dacy, and he died. Just like Andres and the three bangers who were involved in her son’s death. Now I’m close to her, and perhaps it’s time that I joined my wife. I’m not very fond of living, lately. Only the kids and Celia make me bother to rise when the sun does. The work isn’t enough. Not when you have to sit and watch a Chicago version of justice in some bought and sold courtroom. If I could only sleep, I might be able to ride out this black-assed depression. I might be able to outlast it.

  If I could only close my eyes and rest.

  *

  There is no progress on Wendell’s case. It was indeed a twenty-two special that tore up the stem of his brain and killed him. There was massive cerebral damage, the way there always is in one of these pro hits. But there is also no trace of who it was who entered Wendell’s Beverly Hills apartment, who it was who sneaked up on him and popped a cap and then left as quickly as he entered.

  The only way we solve these things is with a snitch. Somebody hears something. One of our informants comes through. Some junky needs a snatch of scag and the fifty we lay on him gets him happy in exchange for the information.

  We have our people on the Green and around the near n
orthside on full alert. We need something, anything, to pin the tail on Bobby Wells. It was Wells who ordered the hit on Martinson, the hit that the newspaperman luckily survived. We still have him on twenty-four hour guard, and the Tribune has offered 25 Large to anybody who has information on the attempted killing. There have been a few calls, but nothing we’ve been able to move on.

  If we don’t get a line from someone on the street, Chaka’s going to pop out of his cage and Bobby’s going to continue on with business as usual. Now Abu Riad’s latest scam is Midnight Basketball. It’s his new image cleanser. He’s using this sports league as a way to receive some federal funding. It’s amazing, the people our government has on the payroll.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  She trembles when I touch her. She says she can’t stop. I try to hold her as tightly as I can, but she says nothing matters. Chaka’s getting out soon. Her little boy has been dead all this time, and his murderer is still going to be walking the streets, free from any kind of justice.

  “What is justice, Jimmy?” she asks as I hold her.

  We’re atop her bed. We’re both fully dressed because we have not made love in over two weeks. Celia says she can’t. It wouldn’t be good for either of us because she’s too distracted to love me the way she says she ought to love me.

  “Is there really such a thing? We can’t be together the way we want because of the colors of our faces. We can’t even make love anymore because this killer’s about to be cut loose again. I’m having trouble concentrating at work. I don’t know if anyone at the hospital’s noticed me, but I’ve been off. I could lose my job if I don’t get good performance ratings. And look at you. You split your life between two houses, and it isn’t fair to Michael and Kelly. It isn’t right. Maybe we should just break it off now and you can get back to where you belong.”