Start Shooting

by Charlie Newton

  “What’s ‘bag the Koreans’ mean?”

  “Shoot them. What’d Anderson say?”

  “Buff’s in a coma.”

  Hahn brakes hard facing an oncoming semi and veers westbound out of Michigan Avenue’s southbound lanes onto Thirty-first. Cars line both sides of the residential street. We center-line way too fast to not kill a kid or a dog.

  “Slow down.”

  Hahn doesn’t slow until she turns south at Morgan and we enter the 3400 block. I don’t see Koreans. Or Ruben’s car. My brother. The Hokkaido package. Blackmail. Murder. We loop the block north, then south—no Ruben, no Koreans—then back to Lý’s building, and park in her alley. Hahn tells her phone, “We’re here.” She listens through an earpiece, says, “Cover the front. We’re going in.” Hahn nods me out and we run for Lý’s six-flat, guns drawn.

  Lý’s shotgun apartment is on the bottom floor, door open. The three rooms have been torn apart. We clear a wrecked living room–bedroom and kitchen for threat, then the bathroom. No sign Ruben’s been here. Glaring among the shambles is an expensive, undamaged dresser. Carefully arranged on the dresser are china bowls, fruit, candles, and petite sepia photographs in expensive frames. Not uncommon in the Four Corners and all over Chinatown.

  I hear myself say, “Ancestor altar, Spirit House.”

  Hahn begins to pick through the rubble. “Look for broken vials or green rubberized seals. If you see ’em, we’re already dead.”

  We sift through Lý’s belongings but find no vials or green rubberized seals. Hahn quits searching and steps up to the ancestor altar. She looks at me, then points at three brass shell casings. “Japanese 7.7s … from World War II.” Her expression isn’t comforting. Hahn does a slow three-sixty of the apartment.

  I add Hahn’s expression and the World War II reference to the damage all around us, try to see the room being torn apart. Maybe Lý’s apartment wasn’t searched. Maybe we’re surrounded in rage. I say what Hahn is thinking: “These altars are for veneration … Veneration doesn’t include your enemies, mass murderers who slaughtered your ancestors.”

  “Nope. And veneration doesn’t include one dollar of blackmail money.” Hahn stares at the 7.7 shells. “We’re in a zero-sum game. Money isn’t the answer. What Lý’s ancestors want is revenge.”

  I three-sixty again. “But why all the theater? Just shoot Dr. Ota on today’s reviewing stand, spend the next ten years lecturing the media from Stateville.”

  Hahn nods, eyes still on the altar. “Unless you actually had something bigger than a gun; something with scale; something with irony. ’Cause, God bless ’em, Asians love irony.”

  “Nah. That’d mean White Flower Lý is running a game on … her partners—”

  “On Ruben. Get used to saying his name. Game or not, Ruben’s our bad guy.”

  “ ’Cause you assholes never make a mistake, right?”

  Hahn stares. “Who shot Jewboy and your sergeant? I hear a new witness ID’d a second perp to the feds—an average-size male driver. One male and one Asian female. Smell like any duo we know?”

  I have to step back not to hit her. No way possible my brother shot Jewboy.

  “What’d you hear at the hospital? Bona fide good-guy Buff Anderson confess before he stairwayed to heaven?”

  My fist balls. “His wife said a woman called early this morning. Buff got dressed, said he was making a pass on ‘Tu Do Street.’ But no way Buff takes Jewboy if Buff’s committing felonies. Buff must’ve figured something, scared somebody. The call was a setup—”

  “Tu Do Street was Saigon’s R&R playground during the war. Our mystery nun’s orphanage was at the bottom by the river. Lý Thi Loan—aka White Flower Lý—worked up the street out of the Continental Palace Hotel.” Hahn nods at the altar. “Hundred percent this woman shot Jewboy and your sergeant.”

  “Then she’s dead.”

  “No, she’s with your brother—”

  I swing. Hahn ducks, steps back, and flashes a military fighting knife. “Can’t shoot you, Bobby, not yet. But you’re not putting your hands on me.”

  I take a breath, then another. “And you’re not shooting my brother.” Hahn shows me the knife. “Winner goes to the hospital. That’ll be me.”

  “Hurt Ruben”—I point at her forehead—“9-millimeter between your eyes.”

  “How about we sift this debris one more time?” Hahn twists the knife behind her forearm. “So we can find White Flower and … her partner.”

  I jab a finger at her. “Buff and Jewboy aren’t guilty.”

  “Whatever you say, Bob.”

  Six minutes of searching yields no evidence that Ruben, Buff, or the Hokkaido package has ever been here. It does yield two two-by-three yellowed photos, one a close-up of a brick building, the other of a nun. The building seems familiar, the nun doesn’t but her habit does. I show the nun to Hahn. “Sisters of Providence—they’re a teaching order based in Indiana, ran St. Dom’s until it closed.”

  Hahn grabs the picture, turns it over, and back. I give her the other photo. She does the same, then looks at me. “What happened to the nuns at St. Dom’s after it closed?”

  I point north toward Twenty-second Street in the Four Corners. “Some might have gone to Cristo Rey, a church, school, and convent. It’s in my district.”

  Hahn examines the building photo again. “Is this Cristo Rey?”

  I take the photo back, try to see it different. “Not Cristo Rey. Could be St. Dom’s. The shadows make it look funny, might be the south corner.” Something clicks. “Buff’s wife said the nun Buff helped in Vietnam … came to the Four Corners.”

  “The nun was here?”

  “And you said Buff and ‘his nun’ helped White Flower Lý get out in—”

  “—1982.” Hahn stares at the two photos. “The year Coleen Brennan was murdered. But my nun wasn’t Sisters of Providence; mine was a Carmelite. Or we thought she was.”

  “ ’Cause you assholes never make a mistake.”

  Hahn blinks, adding and subtracting. “Okay, Anderson gets the Sisters of Providence nun out as Saigon falls. Maybe he knew her before he shipped over. Hell, maybe the nun was from Chicago. And Anderson could’ve met White Flower in Saigon, ’cause that’s White Flower’s job. After the war, nun and cop get child hooker into the USA.” Hahn points at the building photo.

  “White Flower gets room and board where the Sisters of Providence live.”

  Hahn nods. “St. Dom’s. Where the Brennan sisters are.”

  I don’t like where this is going.

  Hahn steps back, the knife blade visible again. “White Flower moves in a block from you and Ruben. Twenty-nine years later White Flower Lý hooks up with your brother to blackmail Furukawa. Ruben’s an honest cop, right? Why approach him for blackmail help? Ruben the Saint arrests her on the spot. Right?”

  I don’t have an explanation, but neither does Hahn. That may prove Ruben’s innocent or at least has extenuating circumstances. Something. Hahn waits for me to join her. I don’t. She says, “Bobby, they must’ve known each other back then, in the Four Corners. Maybe White Flower and Ruben kept in touch. He could’ve helped her out of … a jam—”

  “I lived there, too. I never heard Lý Thi Loan or White Flower Lý.”

  “Be a cop, Bobby, not a relative. There’s something connected here and you know it.”

  “Where? I don’t see your Hokkaido package. Two pictures of the old neighborhood don’t mean anything.”

  “Ruben knew her. She was at St. Dom’s … when Coleen Brennan died.”

  “Don’t. Go. There. I warned you. Don’t throw rape and murder at Ruben and me. I’m done defending that.”

  “Your brother’s a gangster. I’m tired of proving that to you. Ruben’s blackmailing Furukawa with a woman he knows. I’m showing you that connection, the rest of the JonBenet shit you just said is sewer you’re thinking, not me.” Stare. “ ’Cause I told you already, I don’t care who raped Coleen Brennan. And I don’t care who k
illed her.”

  “I do.”

  “Good. Solve that crime after we stop this one. ’Cause this one could get ugly, world-class ugly, if it’s not a hoax.” Hahn points to the altar. “I think Lý has it. The Hokkaido package. I honest to God think she does.”

  “Then we call the cops, the CDC, somebody. Explain—”

  “No. If Lý thinks she’s cornered before we can blindside her and Ruben, who knows what she’ll do.” Hahn’s waits, then adds: “Your brother will let you close, closer than anyone else can get. We need a precision strike, not an army, not news leaks and families packing for the mountains. Panic and publicity guarantees Chicago loses their Olympic sponsor and Olympic salvation … and maybe way worse.”

  If Ruben’s guilty, she’s right. I’m the only one who could get close to him.

  Hahn and I exit the apartment. Thunder hammers from the east. She keeps her Glock in hand, eyes fanning Morgan Street, and tells her phone, “Car two?” She listens, then: “Package isn’t there, but I think we’re finally looking at the goods. Gotta recover all thirty if we want to collect, not twenty-nine and a couple of hundred funerals.” Hahn glances me, listens, then answers. “Roger that. We do it right now or we fold the contract, bump eight years’ worth of work upstairs just when the payday’s coming.”

  Hahn listens while walking us fast toward the curb. Mid-sidewalk she stops and tells her phone, “Like I’m not pissed, too? But it’s getting outta hand. We don’t put every ounce to bed in the next few hours—I say screw the contract. This girl wouldn’t get within a mile of Lý or Furukawa’s 10K without a Tyvek suit.”

  I stop her mid-step. “What do you mean ‘payday’?”

  Hahn pulls her phone away from her mouth, “Need to know,” then sidesteps me toward her car.

  I block her. “I know what a Tyvek suit is. I need to know why ‘payday’ and ‘collect’ are suddenly part of our vocabulary.”

  She tells her phone: “Follow me,” drops it into her pocket and stares. “I told you about the Secret Service, chasing leads—counterfeiters, presidential assassins. Lots of leads, lots of threats—all have to be looked at, vetted. One in a thousand pan out. Takes lots of resources. Terrorist threats—and that includes my specialty, BW—same situation, okay?”

  She ducks to pass. I don’t let her. “You’re hunting the Hokkaido package, Lý, and my brother for money?”

  “Think of me as a bounty hunter, independent but sanctioned, like the private contractors fighting the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

  “You don’t work for the CIA?”

  “I do, we just get paid different, and our rules of engagement are deniable.”

  “You’re a bounty hunter?”

  Hahn’s eyes harden. “Don’t go stupid on me, Bobby. The Hokkaido package is too big, too real, and I think we’re close this time. I smell it.”

  I stare at Hahn: profiteer, CIA-sanctioned bounty hunter. At the end of her ‘payday’ my brother will die, collateral damage whether he deserves it or not. My phone rings. I answer thinking it’s Ruben.

  Jason says, “Commander just signed off on a citywide for you. Thought you oughta know.”

  “For what?” I let Hahn listen so she knows it isn’t Ruben.

  “Murder one. For Danny Vacco.”

  Hahn turns to watch a white SUV pass.

  I ask Jason, “How they figure me for Vacco?”

  “A Mrs Baird’s driver ID’d you running from a Pontiac by Ricobene’s, wrote down the tag. Danny V turns up in the same Pontiac with two in his chest. You told three people, including me, you were capping him. Case makes itself.”

  “Except I didn’t do it. Or molest any goddamn children.”

  “Reindeer can fly. My friend Bobby won’t tell me shit about anything, runs out of the hospital. Why not believe it?”

  I walk ten feet of street, glaring at a car as it passes. The children in the backseat shrink below their window. “I need help and so does Buff.”

  “Help? You got a federal judge for a playmate. Wanna explain that? We got feds in our gang team and this judge gets you PR’d out on a child-rape complaint like it’s a parking ticket. Wanna explain that? I pick you up out front of the L7 yesterday. You’re with Arleen Brennan—the twin sister of a child rape/murder victim—the same day the Herald says you and Ruben are the little girl’s killers. The day before Buff and your brother are to go to the depositions, Buff, Jewboy, and Ruben have a fistfight, then Buff and Jewboy go down via some Asian bitch—”

  “How’s Buff?”

  Silence. “Dying.”

  Tania Hahn reaches me, but her eyes are fixed over my shoulder. She hides her Glock tight to her thigh and tells her phone, “Car two? Cadillac Escalade at the corner. Tinted windows. Second time it’s passed. If it’s the Koreans, they’ll move on me. The Escalade is yours. I repeat, the Escalade is yours.”

  The Escalade begins a left turn away from us. I tell Jason, “I’m into something messy. Buff called it ‘Shadowland.’ Nothing’s what it seems, but it’s all bad.”

  “And you’re not telling me, us? What the fuck is that about?”

  “Survival. Yours and mine. Some kind of CIA maze. Can’t tell the good guys from the bad. Hell, they’re all bad.” I turn away from Hahn and the Escalade’s taillights. “Tania Hahn framed me, forced me to help her find a package that left Japan in the 1940s. We don’t have much time. The package may be in Chicago to blackmail Furukawa and I need your help before—”

  “Sorry. Fresh out of suicide.”

  “—someone can use it tonight.”

  Jason balks. “Use it?”

  Hahn knocks the phone out of my hand. “Want panic in the streets, Officer Vargas?” She cuts to the Escalade’s taillights, then back. “How many will a stampede kill? Everyone you tell has a family.”

  Lightning cracks the eastern sky. The Escalade does a U to face us, not the left turn it started. I draw my .38. Hahn steps back, thinking the .38’s for her. I shove her sideways and two-hand at the Escalade’s windshield. Jason’s faint voice yells from the sidewalk. The Escalade stops hard a hundred and fifty feet up the block.

  Hahn stiff-arms her Glock at the windshield. The Escalade doesn’t charge or retreat.

  Hahn bends her elbow, easing the Glock to her shoulder. “Koreans don’t play tag. They’d already have us on the ground and their skill saws out.” She thinks about it and frowns. “Gotta be Furukawa. And if Furukawa’s here hunting White Flower, then the good Dr. Ota doesn’t plan to pay your brother and White Flower when the package is exchanged. Somehow, Ota’s gonna flash money, isolate Ruben and Lý, and smoke them both.”

  I lower my .38, eyes on the Escalade, and scoop my phone. Jason’s disconnected.

  Hahn taps her watch. “The Furukawa 10K starts in less than an hour. We bait the Escalade away from here, lose it fast, then hit Cristo Rey. If the nun’s there she could still be Lý’s friend or patron. Keep calling Ruben, my guys will go through Lý’s apartment, find her job address. C’mon. You drive.”

  Hahn tells car two the new plan. I jump in her car, lay on the horn, and gun us south seven blocks on Morgan into the old stockyards. The Escalade stays in the mirror. I didn’t tell Jason that Hahn wouldn’t get within a mile of Furukawa’s 10K without a Tyvek suit. What if Jason does? Hahn bends over the seat, Glock between the headrests at the back window.

  My phone’s in my lap; so’s my .38. I’m doing eighty, weaving, hoping no uniform cars interdict us. We fly past citizens who pull cell phones to complain. This kind of driving won’t dodge the uniforms for long. “Hold on.” I brake hard, veer into an ungated warehouse lot, gun it to the next lot, jump the curb, veer into the open gate, gun it to a street, then back north. My phone rings.

  Hahn grabs it from my lap. “Ruben, this is Tania Hahn.”

  ARLEEN BRENNAN

  SUNDAY, 3:35 PM

  “Repeat it back to me.”

  The homeless guy says, “When they introduce Dr. Ota, I turn around and throw the test
tube.”

  I pat the shoulder of his bright yellow 2016 Chicago Olympics 10K T-shirt. “Good. Then what?”

  “Stand there and let them jump me. Tell them you—the lady from Vietnam—paid me two hundred dollars to throw it.”

  I hand him five twenties, then tear five more in half, and hand five of the halves to him. “The rest tomorrow, back at the mission, okay? Got it?”

  “Back at the mission. Tomorrow.”

  “Go up to the stand now. Get as close as you can to the middle. When all the people are up there, you look over here for me.” I point to the northeast corner of Michigan and Congress. “When I wave this umbrella, you turn around and throw the test tube at Dr. Ota, the Japanese man at the microphone.”

  “They won’t hurt me?”

  “Not if you just stand there. They want to know where I am.” I pat his shoulder again. “And you tell them everything you can remember.”

  SUNDAY, 3:50 PM

  Ten thousand runners cram Michigan Avenue waiting for the starter’s pistol. The river of summer Mardi Gras is eight lanes wide and stretches back six city blocks, an equal number in running shorts, Halloween costumes, and all manner of Chicago regalia. I call Sarah a fifth time and hang up before her voice mail answers.

  Furukawa’s reviewing stand is set up at the Congress Parkway divider on the Grant Park side of Michigan Avenue and covered in bunting. Dr. Ota and his fellow luminaries are thirty yards from me. Toddy Pete Steffen is up there next to the mayor. Security cameras rotate atop tall poles, scanning the crowd for people like me.

  Presidential assassin.

  For $124 cash at Filene’s Basement, I bought a long black wig, an umbrella, sunglasses, and a Hawaiian-print muumuu that covers my Blanche DuBois dress. After my man throws the test tube I’ll dive into the crowd and start running. That’s plan B: nobody gets hurt; my part’s done; I get the lead in Streetcar.

  Lone gunman.

  Theater, Arleen, a show, nothing more. Except it feels like we’re throwing the grenade at Anwar Sadat. And it should. Dr. Ota won’t know it’s a warning until after the test tube scares the shit out of him in public. His bodyguards won’t know it’s a warning, either. No telling what they’ll do, what the cops will do, or the runners, if people on the viewing stand stampede.