The Bricklayer of Albany Park

by Terry John Malik

  I had assumed for some time that Francis was holding back information, maybe because he was losing confidence in Sean or to protect Tony. “Francis is like me. Sometimes he prefers to work alone. Those additional victims are probably what caused him to believe he knew where to find the guy. What are the locations of the new pushpins? They could lead us to Francis.”

  “Wait a second, let me get closer. There are red pins near LaSalle-Peru, near St. Charles, Des Moines, and two more in the Crown Point area in Indiana.”

  When I did not respond immediately, Keisha became anxious. “Hello? Hello? Foster are you still there?”

  “Yes. I’m thinking.”

  Eddie had stepped into the hallway to take a call. I wasn’t going to wait and clear it with him, so without asking, I gave Keisha further instructions. “You and Alvarez should get back in the car. Park down the block out of sight, but park in a place from where you can view the front door.”

  By the time I finished the call with Keisha, Eddie had returned and said, “I just got a call from the 21st District. A member of the Mounted Unit reported that someone matching Francis’s description was sighted near Addison and the Lake. He may be headed toward Wrigley. Maybe he’s returning to the alley where Tony was shot.”

  “That’s possible. If it is Francis, we shouldn’t let a stranger approach him. It should be someone he knows.”

  “Do you want to go?”

  I paused. If Micah’s analysis was correct, Francis was probably still blocking memories of the shooting. Odds were against the likelihood he would regain his memory and revisit the site, but I couldn’t dismiss it. “No,” I answered, “but maybe you should head up there. Based on what Keisha reported, I have a hunch I know where Francis might be.”

  “Are you sure?” Eddie asked.

  “No. I’m not sure, dammit, but if my hunch proves to be right, I’m the person Francis needs to talk to.”

  “As distraught as Frank might be right now, is it possible that if he finds this guy, he won’t even try to make an arrest? Would he just impose his own sense of justice?”

  “You mean find him and kill him? That’s exactly what worries me.”

  Eddie eyed me with a hint of suspicion, looked over to Sean. “Sean, you go with Foster. I’ll call the 21st and let them know not to approach Frank—if it is him—until I get there.”

  I started for the door, but Eddie grabbed my arm. “Tommy, you’re not telling me everything about what’s going on with Frank, but as you always warned me, keep your emotions in check.”

  “Eddie, you really think you needed to tell me that?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, when it concerns Frank, you bet your ass I do.” He was right, of course.

  Late Night—Thursday, May 28

  Driving an unmarked Ford Interceptor with the siren and blue strobe clearing our way, Sean weaved his way through the late night traffic west on Fullerton Avenue. A light rain began to fall, giving the asphalt a black sheen. In the distance to the west, a sudden flash of sheet lightning revealed a wide front of storm clouds heading our way. Seconds later, rolling thunder roared in the distance. Sean was clearly on edge, but not because of the weather.

  As we approached the intersection of Grand and Newland, he pressed me for information that I wasn’t willing to share. “Look, I don’t understand what’s going on, but you seem to. What did your psychiatrist friend say about Frank?”

  “Not now.”

  “I need to know!”

  “I said not now, Detective.”

  Without taking his eyes off the road, Sean snapped, “Why are we going to Frank’s house? Keisha cleared it. It sounds like he was there, but left.”

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I instructed Sean to drive two blocks west of Newland, take a right, and double back on the first side street to the alley behind Francis’s house.

  “The alley?”

  Just then, a blinding bolt of lightning struck the ground no more than a hundred yards ahead of us, and a sharp loud clap of thunder followed immediately. Bright orange and yellow sparks exploded from what had to be a transformer. The neighborhood went dark. The sudden cloudburst sounded like the roof of the car was being pelted with ball bearings. The wipers couldn’t keep up.

  Over another clap of thunder, Sean shouted, “Foster! Why the alley?” “I have Keisha and Alvarez covering the front. I want to check out the back of the house. Trust me on this, Detective!”

  By the time Sean turned into the alley behind the 2500 block of Newland, the downpour had slowed to a steady rain shower. “Sean, turn your lights off and drive slowly toward the middle of the block.” Using the car’s side spotlight, I strained, looking for address plates on the garages.

  Sean peered through the rain at the row of garages. “Which side of the alley?”

  “My side.” I read off the numbers that I spotted on the garages. “2531, 2535 . . . Stop here.”

  I pointed about twenty yards ahead. “There, that one.” It was a brick garage with a small address plate hanging from a single nail, “2545.” I snapped off the spotlight.

  “I want you to pull the car in front of the garage door as if you were going to pull in. Wait for lightning. Use the thunder that follows to cover the sound of the car’s engine, and be prepared to turn on your high beam headlights when I tell you.”

  “I wish to hell you’d tell me what we’re doing!”

  We waited only a few seconds before thunder roared again. Immediately, Sean pulled the car in front of the garage and killed the engine. I dug into my coat pocket and pulled out the garage door opener that I had removed from the pickup truck.

  “Christ, Foster! What are you doing?”

  I didn’t respond. I depressed the remote switch—nothing happened.

  “Foster! What the hell are you doing?”

  While I removed the back cover of the remote and wiped a thin film of soot from the remote’s copper contacts, I explained. “Look, you speculated that Tony was Francis’s squatter. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. But someone took over Francis’s house, and it may have been our killer. Francis may have figured that out, too. That’s why we’re here. I’m playing the same hunch as Francis.”

  “Why would The Bricklayer move into Frank’s house?”

  “Not sure that he has, but I told Francis . . . You were there, remember? It was the day Francis found Cervantes’s body dumped at his front door. I told him then that this so-called Bricklayer must have some kind of connection to him. If he had some kind of connection, then maybe he took over Francis’s house in his absence.”

  “And the remote?”

  “If the squatter was our killer, he would have hidden his camper in the garage and helped himself to the remote. I think Francis left my apartment to follow his hunch that the killer had been using his house and may have returned while Francis was staying with me.”

  Pointing to the side of the garage, I said, “Look there, just below the roof line, the window, there’s a light on in the garage. Someone’s in there. Maybe Francis was checking out the garage and—”

  “And, may have stumbled across our killer.”

  I finished cleaning the remote, replaced the back cover, and depressed the button again. Just as another flash of lightning filled the sky, the wood-panel garage door lurched up. “Now!” I yelled. “Hit your brights!”

  Midnight—Thursday, May 28

  The headlights’ bright beam pierced the rain and silhouetted the stooped figure of a man wearing a gray hoodie, the edge of the hood hanging down over his forehead. He stood in the center of the garage and held a gun in his left hand and a camping lantern in the other. I couldn’t see his face through the rain. The hooded figure straddled what appeared to be a man lying on the garage floor. I couldn’t tell who that was either, but he was moving his head side to side—if it was Francis, at least he was still alive. I slowly opened the passenger door of our car and stood behind it.

  The hooded figure placed the lantern on the ground, shaded his eyes fr
om the car’s high beams and yelled out in a high-pitched drawl, “Who’s there? That you ol’ man?”

  Sean threw open his door and began to draw his weapon. Without turning my head toward Sean, I instructed him to holster it.

  “But that has to be Frank on the ground!” Sean yelled over the din of the rain.

  “Holster it, Sean. I know what I’m doing.”

  “It’s me—Foster. Who are you?”

  “Ah, it’s the great Thomas Aquinas Foster, formerly of the fuckin’ Chicago PD, come lookin’ for his beloved Detective Francis Vincenti!”

  I didn’t want to play his game, but I had no choice if I were to protect Francis. “OK, you know my name. What’s yours?”

  “Names don’t much matter to you, do they? Did you call him Frank like everyone else? Hell no, you insisted on that insultin’ habit of calling him Francis! He hates being called Francis.”

  “Tell me what to call you.”

  “Anthony. My name is Anthony.”

  In a quiet voice, Sean said, “Foster, that could be the M.E. Tech— you know, that guy Allison. He was from Mississippi. That sure as hell sounds like a southern accent. Get him to tell you his last name!”

  “I’m Frank’s friend—a better friend than you, ol’ man, and a better one than Frank’s asshole partner, Kelly. He’s out there with you right now, ain’t he?”

  Sean shouted back with enough desperation for the two of us, “Yeah, I’m here. Is that Frank on the ground? Is he alright?” Sean whispered to me, “That’s got to be Frank on the ground. We have to go in!”

  “Not yet, Sean!” I looked back into the garage. “Who’s that on the floor?”

  Looking down, the hooded figure gestured with his gun to the body under him and said, “Him? What do you care?”

  “Let him go,” I pleaded. “It’s me that you want. Isn’t that right?”

  More thunder and a quick flash of lightning, but farther away now—I waited for an answer, the cold rain seeping down the back of my shirt collar, the only noise the pinging of the rain on the car’s hood. Just then, the man on the floor moaned and tried to sit up. I struggled to see the man’s face. Too dark. Too much rain. Anthony pointed the gun down at him, fired a single shot into the man’s thigh and then pointed the gun at me. The man on the floor bellowed in pain. Anthony ignored him. Sean reached for his Sig. “Kelly, go for your fuckin’ gun, and the ol’ man’s dead before you ever get your hand on the grip.”

  Sean shouted back. “Leave Foster out of this!”

  “Leave him out of it? He’s damn well in the center of it! He didn’t have a son of his own, ya know, so he had to steal one. He snatched Frank out of one of his phony criminal justice classes. Just plucked him out of the blue. Trained him up to be just like him. Ain’t that right ol’ man?”

  I said nothing.

  “Yeah, you made him into a cop so he’d fulfill your dreams—not his! You knew you could manipulate him, mold him like a piece of school-kids’ clay. He was goin’ be super cop to make up for you getting kicked off the force! Ain’t that right?”

  “Anthony, who’s on the floor? He may still be alive. Let me come get him.” I moved from behind the car door and started toward the garage.

  Sean, frustrated, ever so slowly went for his gun. Anthony saw him and fired a shot over my head.

  “Don’t do it, Kelly! Next one goes into the ol’ man’s heart!”

  “I’m coming in, Anthony. We can talk through this—”

  Anthony raised the gun to shoulder height still aiming at me, saying, “Stay where you are, I ain’t gonna fall for one of your tricks.”

  Sean looked over to me and nervously asked, “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “It’s me that you want, Anthony. Let me come in. We can talk.”

  “Naw, stay where you are. You just want to play head games with me, just like you done played with Frank all these years. No, ol’ man, no more games.”

  Keeping his gun trained on me, Anthony looked over to Sean. “Kelly you don’t know the half of it. You wasn’t a true friend to Frank, either. You’re a disloyal bastard—you and that black bitch you’re always hanging around with these days. And I tried to warn Frank—warn all of you—about that crazy cokehead, Beth. But no one would listen. No, Kelly, you can go fuck youself.”

  “Anthony, Frank once showed me a picture of you. I want to see if it really is you!” I shouted.

  “Is that what you want? You so damn anxious to see my face—fine.” Anthony pulled his hood back over his head just as another sudden flash of lightning filled the sky behind us, piercing the rain, and like a flash bulb from a different era, illuminated Anthony’s face.

  At that moment, my worst fear was realized and Micah’s diagnosis was confirmed. Detective Francis Vincenti stood there in the garage, staring back at us, with a gun in his hand pointed at me. Sean was shouting. At first, I couldn’t hear him. I wasn’t sure if his shouts were muffled by the rain or I simply didn’t want to hear what he was saying.

  “Holy shit, Foster. It’s Frank!”

  I regained my senses, looked over at Sean. “Feldman warned me to expect this, but I didn’t believe him. I’ll explain later, once we have him safe.”

  I yelled back into the garage, “Francis?”

  “Dammit, ol’ man, I told you—your precious Francis ain’t here—and he ain’t never comin’ back.”

  “OK. OK. Anthony, tell me who’s on the floor—maybe he’s still alive. Let me come get him.” I moved from behind the car door and started toward the garage. “Anthony, I’m coming in. I want you to give me the gun, and then you and I will go to a safe place and talk.”

  He answered my plea by firing twice more into the man on the floor. “Stay where you are, Foster. And Kelly, you too. I got nothin’ to lose now!” Looking down at the man whose life he had just ended, he paused and lamented, “I got nothin’ to lose now.”

  “Who is he? Let me come in and get him some help.”

  “He told me his name’s Dominguez and lives down the block. I saw the light on in the garage and caught him snooping around. After I slapped him ’round a little and showed him my bolt cutters, I got him to admit he likes to touch little boys.”

  Sean was able to draw his weapon without Anthony seeing it until Sean held it waist high. “Don’t do it, Kelly! I warned you. Next one goes into the ol’ man’s heart!”

  “I’m coming in, Anthony. We can talk through this. No one else has to die.”

  “We all have to die—some sooner than others. This is all your fault. I could’ve took care of Frank, but you had to interfere.”

  “I’m coming in, Anthony—for Francis’s sake! I won’t take no for an answer.”

  Francis raised the gun to shoulder height still aiming at me, saying, “Stay where you are, I ain’t going nowhere ever again.”

  “I’m coming in—”

  The bullet slammed into my chest, and I was knocked backward. The pain was excruciating, burning, blinding. As I collapsed, I heard a second and third shot from the garage and the shattering of the car’s windshield, immediately followed by three quick shots coming from Sean’s side of the car. From where I lay on the rain-soaked ground, I saw Francis crumple to the garage floor. Sean ran into the garage and kicked Francis’s gun away from where it fell. He checked for a pulse and then ran back over to me.

  Coughing and wheezing, I struggled to speak, spitting up a fine spray of blood. “Francis?”

  “For God’s sake, don’t talk.” Sean pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, covered the wound in my chest, and pressed hard. Moving my hand to the wound, he replaced his hand with mine. “Here, keep pressure on it.”

  I tried to sit up. Sean laid me back down, took off his sport coat, crumpled it into a ball, and placed it under my feet. As I strained to breathe and spat up more blood, I heard Sean call for an ambulance, yelling into the radio, “Officer down! Officer down!”

  I heard movement, and realized Sean had removed an emergency meta
llized blanket from the car’s trunk. He covered me to help retain my rapidly declining body heat and protect me from the rain.

  “Hang in there, Foster. You’re too fucking tough to let a single bullet kill you.”

  Sean knelt on one knee and leaned over me. Rain dripped from his face onto mine. He talked to me for what seemed like a long time, mostly small talk about his son, none of which I recall now. Sheet lightning bounced off the wet pavement and lit Sean’s face, exposing his fear. My breathing became more labored and my eyes wouldn’t focus. I saw Sean’s lips move, but could no longer make out the words. With the wailing of sirens in my ears, I passed out.

  Friday Morning to Saturday Night, May 29 — 30

  A Chicago Fire Department EMT-Paramedic saved my life. Recognizing that the single bullet from Francis’s gun had produced a sucking chest wound that penetrated my right lung, she applied a gauze dressing, made a small incision below the bottom rib on my right side, and inserted a tube into my chest’s pleural cavity to drain the gushing blood. She strapped an oxygen mask on my face and instructed Sean to hold the small canister while I was lifted into the ambulance. They transported me to the closest approved Trauma 1 center at Loyola Medical Center in Maywood Park, about fifteen minutes away.

  After a three-hour operation during which the thoracic surgeon removed the .45 caliber slug from the lower lobe of my right lung, I was moved to the ICU. I woke up briefly Friday morning, connected to a ventilator. I painfully turned my head looking for a familiar face, but saw only a confusing mass of tubes and wires. Then I passed out again. That night, the nurse took me off the ventilator, and I was able to take a few ice chips. I struggled to talk to the attending nurse, but she told me to save my energy for a few more hours, promising me that I’d be moved out of the ICU in the morning.

  Saturday morning, less than thirty-six hours after I had been shot, I woke to find Sean and Eddie in my room. Eddie sat in the chair next to my bed reading emails on a new cell phone, and Sean paced near the foot of my bed. It was Eddie who saw me open my eyes and survey the room.