Start Shooting

by Charlie Newton

  “Please, Walter, c’mon. These guys aren’t kidding.”

  The Red Sea doesn’t part. The stone doesn’t roll away. Because all that’s bullshit.

  My eyes fill all the way and I squeeze his giant hand one last time. “I’ll take care of your folks, Walter. Got my word, whatever it takes.” My best friend doesn’t squeeze back because Walter E. Mesrow is gone.

  Outside the morgue the air is thin, loud, and thirty-five degrees hotter. The parking lot is full. It’s always full. I walk between cars to mine and key the door. The interior is an oven. My key reaches the ignition, fumbles, and falls to the mat. Both palms squeeze the steering wheel. I grimace my eyes shut to absolute black. Walter, I am so sorry. A sob wracks my shoulders. My hands hide my face but can’t stop the tears. I slump down across the seat, curl fetal, and weep like a child.

  Empty and weak, I push up into the seat and wipe my face presentable. The morgue fills my windshield gray. From Hawaiian shirts and ten-mile loopy grins to … nothing, and for what? Now it’s on to Mercy to see Buff, then cry in their parking lot, too. I start the car but don’t put it in gear. Maybe nineteen years is enough.

  At Roosevelt and Michigan I loop a ’62 gunship and change lanes toward the curb. Two black bangers sit the front and back. The gunship turns south behind me, away from downtown. No bangers crossing Roosevelt today. Today is Furukawa’s 10K, a law-and-order day in downtown. Today we have the right to police that part of the city.

  I pull my phone to call Ruben but listen to a message from Arleen, her voice nervous, but strong: “Fingers crossed, Bobby. On my way in. Love you for calling, means a lot. Bye.” Watch check; two hours ago, hope she got it; hope she gets out of Chicago and never looks back. Exhale. No I don’t; I wish, I wish … I don’t know what I wish.

  I try Ruben again and get voice mail. Again. My hand cocks … hesitates, then drops limp to the seat. Hahn was right when she said the Hokkaido package wasn’t done killing people. She lost Lopez; I lost Jewboy. And maybe Buff. A CTA passes through the intersection; Furukawa’s Olympics flag covers the entire bus. Furukawa gets police protection because they’re the good guys. That mass-murder shit back in China? We’ll just sorta overlook that because they build a park every now and then. But Jewboy gets to die; that’s okay.

  I try Ruben again, then make the right turn into Mercy Hospital’s crowded parking lot. Buff may or may not still be alive. Not sure if I can face him and Jewboy being dead. A doctor’s space is empty nearest the entrance and that’s where I park. My phone rings again—I answer getting out of the car.

  Tania Hahn says, “Don’t know where you are, Vargas, but in the next five seconds I better. If not, that body and your Beretta’s public domain.”

  “Where’s Ruben?”

  “Clock’s ticking, Bobby. If you’re not wired to do your sergeant and Ruben in fifteen minutes, I’m dropping this bundle at Area 4 and finding a new horse to back.”

  “Jewboy’s dead. Buff Anderson’s fifty-fifty. I’m walking into ICU now.” My car door slams and I turn toward Mercy’s emergency entrance. “Give me thirty minutes, then you and I go find Ruben.”

  “No. Don’t go in till I wire you. We need your sergeant on tape to convince Ruben he’s gotta give this up.”

  “Buff isn’t part of your Hokkaido package. I don’t know what he and Ruben were fighting about, but it wasn’t that—”

  “Ground control to Bobby—their fight was about the package or Coleen Brennan. Or both.”

  My feet stop on Mercy’s sidewalk. “Leave Coleen Brennan out of this. Last time I’m warning you.” I hate what it might mean, but repeat what Jason told me anyway. “The shooter who got Buff and Jewboy was ID’d as Asian, a female.”

  “Asian, female—gotta be White Flower Lý.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s their partner, Bobby. Your brother’s partner. For whatever reason, Ruben’s crew is disintegrating. Get your sergeant on tape, if he’s not dead. Anderson can tell us why the crew’s coming apart. Tell us if today’s 10K is a target.”

  “Fuck you and the federal government. Robbie didn’t say shit about Buff.”

  Hahn’s voice ramps. “Recovering the package from your brother isn’t about the federal government, asshole. It’s about your city and three million innocent people.”

  “Yeah? Well fuck them, too.”

  The ER door opens. It smells like the morgue and I start crying all over again.

  ARLEEN BRENNAN

  SUNDAY, 12:45 PM

  Traffic zips past the Shubert and a marquee that later today may be mine, should be mine. Will be mine. Sarah my attentive agent hands me my extra-heavy purse and beams at me like I’m her only client. Her smile is dazzling and I can still taste her lipstick. She claps again and says, “There is a God and she is a woman. You were … monumental.”

  I can almost walk. Ruben Vargas has stepped away, into the netherworld where the Stanley Kowalskis congregate. My feet have finished floating, I think. Maybe I’ll do spins, a leap or two, throw flowers at the buses, even the Greyhounds to L.A. Could the sun be any shinier? The Brennan sisters are about to win; call Bobby Vargas, the three of us and Tinker Bell are finally out on tour.

  My phone vibrates its hooray. I dig it out and flip to tell whoever it is that I am the new queen of England. It’s Ruben Vargas. My eyes and attention jump to the shadows, the street. No—I delete his presence and his memory and scroll past. Bobby’s earlier text message appears, bright and shiny. I punch Call and his voice mail answers. After twenty-nine years Bobby comes back to us on our day. That cannot be coincidence.

  “Bobby, it’s me. I did it. They loved me.” I grin at Sarah. “Now we wait. But Toddy Pete Steffen came, ran down to the stage, I kid you not, said he loved me for Streetcar and other shows, too. Just like we planned it when we were kids, took forever but—” My toes point; maybe I’ll pirouette. “Sarah and I are leaving for the gospel brunch at the Park Grill—our own little watch party. Call me. Please come, I mean it. Okay? I want you to be there when we win.” I flip shut and keep grinning at Sarah.

  Sarah says, “Blanche and Arleen should pack for the talk-show circuit. You two may have just outgrown this town.”

  “No, no, no. Chicago makes it soooo much better. None of the Brennans will ever have to take the bus anymore. We will, but we won’t have to. We’ll buy a bakery; everybody I know gets crumble muffins!”

  A long black limo stops at the curb. The driver exits and opens the passenger door on his side. Out pops a youngish woman in a sensible suit, large purse in one hand, a cell phone pressed to her ear. On my left, the doors to the Shubert pop open. Anne Johns rushes toward the limo with both arms outstretched. Behind Anne, her assistant trails with a phone to her ear. The limo hasn’t emptied all its passengers. Perfect legs cross as they swing out of the passenger door; the rest of Tharien Thompson unbends into our director’s waiting embrace.

  Anne Johns grins into Tharien’s face. “My God, girl, you look fabulous!”

  They hug tight but air-kiss to protect Tharien’s professional makeup. She’s wearing a fitted postwar, flower-print dress, nylons, and low heels. She’s from South Africa like Charlize Theron, but today she’s stepping off a train from Biloxi in 1947, doesn’t have to speak to say “fragile, pretentious Southern belle.” Ten months ago Tharien won an Emmy for Tarantula Rose on HBO. Last Thursday she was nominated again.

  Sarah says, “Hello, Tharien.” I just stare.

  Tharien raises her chin, as if to offer us a beau dollah to please retrieve her travel case, so in character I want to cry or applaud. She’s whisked inside. Sarah and I are left to appreciate her limo. I ask her driver, “Was that the eight fifteen from Biloxi?”

  Sarah reformats her agent’s smile and pats my shoulder. “The French critics hated her in Tarantula Rose. Suggested she return to her cameras.”

  “Back to Africa would be better.” Envy, fear, more envy. “Have to admit she was a good photographer.”

  Sarah
throws her arm around my shoulders. “Not today, today and Streetcar belong to Arleen Brennan.” Sarah’s arm pulls me toward our brunch celebration. Our first step east is through a lingering wisp of magnolia perfume.

  Frown. Tharien thought of everything that I didn’t; just too perfect, and ten years younger. My bare shoulders tighten under Sarah’s arm and I begin to see it coming, to recognize I will be the actress who didn’t get it. You have to be that close—down to the final two, down to visualizing the dressing room, your wardrobe lady, hair and makeup, the preshow bus ride in from home every night, the new family who loves you, who depends on you. You have to be that close to be the actress who didn’t get the part.

  SUNDAY, 1:15 PM

  Brunch is no longer the answer. Sarah grins at me across our plates of French Whatever; the French hated Tharien so Sarah thought haute cuisine was appropriate. She’s talking, telling me not to worry. I stare out at the city in summer. Across Pearson Street, in Water Tower Square, a man and a woman throw popcorn to a flock of pigeons. The pigeons scatter and return as each pedestrian passes. The man wears a seersucker jacket on a hundred-degree day and doesn’t look at us sitting under our table’s umbrella. The woman is Asian, long black hair, sun hat, sunglasses, and sits with space between her and the man. Two policemen, both blocky, walk through the pigeons, but the man pays them no mind. The woman dips her head as if to hide. The man is Ruben Vargas.

  Ruben Vargas places the popcorn on his bench next to the Asian woman, then reaches for a cell phone and dials. The woman looks across the square at Sarah and me.

  Sarah’s phone rings. She answers, smiling, “Detective Vargas.” Sarah winks and pats my hand. “Yes. Sure, thank you. She’s right here.” Sarah hands me the phone. “Wants to wish you good luck. I’m going to the girls’ room.”

  I accept the phone, smile at Sarah as she slices between tables, then stare at Ruben and his woman. Ruben removes his toothpick and says, “Tharien Thompson, huh? I still like your chances. Me, Robbie, Anne Johns, Sarah—you got a lot of folks on your side.”

  “I doubt you and Robbie are speaking much. What do you want?”

  “Time to go, chica. Get you ready for the trade with the Japanese ladies.”

  “Bye.”

  Ruben pauses, then says, “Santa Monica, California. The pier, ten years ago last month.”

  The phone fumbles in my hand. Heat gushes my face. I smother the phone shut. Don’t want to hear that again. Across Pearson Street, Ruben is standing.

  The phone rings again. Ruben keeps calling until I answer. He says, “Had your audition, chica. Kept my word and will on the rest of our business. Robbie will get his share, so will the Koreans. No reason to blow up your Shubert run if you’re good enough to get it—and from what I hear you are. No reason for any cops to go back to California, either.” Pause. “But what I can’t do is wait any longer to deal with the Japanese.”

  The phone trembles against my ear.

  “Tell my friend Sarah Hellman adiós. We’ll all party tonight when you get the part. Now, take a cab to the Sunday Market on Canal. I’ll meet you on the west sidewalk at Fourteenth Street.” Ruben picks up his popcorn and hands it to the Asian woman. “I don’t see you at the curb in ten minutes, I make the call to Santa Monica. And don’t think about bringing my little brother. Get him involved any deeper and it’ll kill both of you.”

  Ruben clicks off. He and the Asian woman disappear into the throng of tourists and Michigan Avenue’s well-heeled shoppers mingling with this afternoon’s 10K runners, partiers, and concertgoers. Furukawa and Toddy Pete save Chicago. Chicago saves the Shubert Theater Company. I get Streetcar. All good. Then I help Robbie and Ruben blow up Furukawa. The Olympics go to Tokyo. Chicago goes broke. The Shubert closes. One big happy family.

  Could you dig the hole deeper, Arleen?

  Sure you can. With people like Ruben and Robbie, the hole always gets deeper. And now Ruben has another hole, from ten years ago, the night I ran from Santa Monica to New York and eventually back to Chicago. My pixie-dust plan won’t hold together with the Santa Monica pier in it. Not if Ruben somehow has proof. I’ll always be one cop-to-cop phone call away from L.A. County jail and the State of California vs. Arleen Brennan.

  A hand covers mine. I squeeze. Sarah yelps sliding into her chair. I let go, say, “Sorry,” hand over her phone, and scramble for my purse.

  Sarah grabs my wrist. “Wait. What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

  “I have to go.”

  “Where? Why?”

  I stare at her not sure if I’ll cry or scream. “I’ll be okay. Have to be, right? This afternoon you’ll tell me I got the part.” Sarah doesn’t let go. She stares at the bruises my makeup may no longer be covering, bruises from Ruben Vargas. “I have to go. But … don’t call me if I don’t get it, okay?”

  Sarah lets go of my wrist and I grab my purse with the loaded 9-millimeter in it.

  “Forget that. Call me either way. It’ll settle a lot of things.”

  SUNDAY, 1:30 PM

  A smudged Plexiglas partition separates me from the cabdriver. I’m alone in his backseat crossing the Roosevelt Road Bridge, but I’m not alone-alone. The nightmare man on the pier whispers what I already know, that my pixie-dust plan is over; my Streetcar future is gone unless the 9-millimeter in my purse is in my hand when I meet Ruben. Just pull the trigger is now, and always has been, the only solution. The nightmare man whispers, Like you did before. Just pull the trigger … be a good girl.

  I gag, then choke. My hand covers my mouth. I force a swallow, then gasp. I’ll call Bobby. Ask him what to do. The voice says, No, you’ll not need a Mexican’s permission to do what has to be done. Chicago must have the Olympics and the Brennan sisters must have the Shubert Theater. Be a good girl. That’s it, you know what to do.

  “Shut up!” My hands slam my ears. The cabdriver stares from his mirror. I fumble into my purse for my phone. The 9-millimeter stops me. Bobby is Ruben’s brother; you can’t call him. My fingers slide under and around the 9-millimeter’s grips. The panic fades. What did Ruben mean “get Bobby involved any deeper and it’ll kill both of you”? That’s the second time he’s threatened Bobby.

  The cab changes lanes as we climb above my father’s river, twenty-nine years later still the demarcation between the haves and have-nots. We reach the bridge’s apex on the west side of the river above an oily, half-mile-wide switching yard clogged with thirty or forty dormant trains. Just beyond their rust and decay, the Sunday Market sprawls ten blocks north and south on Canal. Twenty thousand Mexicans. A one-day foreign country. And Ruben Vargas, their patrón del barrio.

  Chicago’s immigrants come here for a taste of home, to buy from the rows of homemade tents and hawkers, to wade through the burlap sacks of chilies, first communion dresses, radial tires, cowboy boots, piles of used tools, and fresh-cooked goats. Even in the dead of winter this market is border-town Mexico, the same food frying, the same musicians playing.

  My father hated Mexicans. Hated their food, their language, the soap they used. Scabin’ bastards, workin’ my river for a day’s pay niggers wouldn’t take free. Coleen and I hated our father right back, as much as any two nine-year-olds could.

  On Sundays Ruben’s a king here. That’s why he picked this place to meet. The market is considered the “Mexican door” to the Four Corners; if you’re Hispanic, the safest way home. My hand pats the gun. But Ruben isn’t going home. And neither am I.

  The cabdriver ekes through a break in the throng at the market’s middle intersection. At the first opportunity he turns left, drives south to Fourteenth Street, and drops me ten blocks from where the Brennan sisters and the Vargas brothers grew up. I stand at the corner, anonymous in the overflow of buyers and sellers. Why get in Ruben’s car? Why come here if you’re not getting in the car? Two hours ago I shared the stage with Jude Law; now I’m about to share a car and a murder weapon with Ruben Vargas.

  Call Bobby. Run away.

  Or listen t
o the voice, walk east toward the market, put two in Ruben’s chest, call it self-defense, for me, the city, the Shubert Theater Company.

  Ruben’s Crown Victoria is double-parked at Canal facing me, windows up, engine running. Last chance to call Bobby. If I get in Ruben’s car, there’s no turning back—either I use the 9-millimeter in my purse or front Ruben’s blackmail on Furukawa. Anything else is a bet on the daytime-TV fantasy that three different prosecutors and the Korean mafia will believe I’m innocent enough to be left alone.

  Is the 9-millimeter’s safety off or on? Ruben’s shape is bleary in the glare of his windshield. And the stage at the Shubert is very, very far away. Bump from behind; I jerk away; a Mexican man with his daughter stares as he passes. Ruben pops his door but doesn’t get out. His door closes and he honks the horn.

  Decide.

  I reach in and thumb-off the safety. Kill Ruben, or don’t. Believe him and blackmail Furukawa, or don’t. You can’t run and you can’t hide. Do murder now, or—Or don’t do it and call Bobby. I glance the buildings and dead-end streets, and the one absolute fact the Four Corners carves into your guts, true when Coleen and I were hugging each other in the shower, true when I was thirty-two on that pier in Santa Monica, and true now—happy endings require a girl believe in miracles; and to make it that far she better be able to pull the trigger.

  I walk to Ruben’s car, bend to see in the backseat, then get in the front. Ruben has a bandage above his eye and a fat lower lip that the distance at the Shubert and Pearson Street hid. His attention stays straight ahead, intent on something, toothpick moving between his teeth.

  Decide. My heart begins to pound.

  Ruben turns to me, watches me inspect his face as my fingers creep to the gun. He says, “There’ll be two of ’em, the Japs I told you tried to cap my partner before she brought in me and Robbie. Dr. Ota thought he could rob her instead of pay. Now she’s got me, and so do you.” Ruben nods over his seat. “I’m giving you something to hand them. After you do, say, ‘Open it.’ ” Ruben stares hard at me. “Understand?”