“That would be the easy way around our problem,” Husak said. Making easy sound even money with unicorn.
Mark said, “Right. So when we set the pickup, the where and when—”
“—will be strict need-to-know,” Husak said. “You two are the only ones from this unit who’ll be there. So no other detective on this task force, especially Phil Adams, needs to know.”
“Thanks, Loo,” Doonie said.
“But,” Husak grumbled, “people above me in the chain of command will be told the where and when.”
“That was my next question,” Mark said. “Don’t suppose there’s a chance that—a certain senior officer—could be cut out of the loop?”
Husak shook his head.
Doonie shrugged. “Langan won’t risk gettin’ caught bein’ the one who sets up Dale to get whacked. That’s why Cousin Eddie hadda stick Phil in here.”
Husak scowled. “You hope.” Another unicorn.
Doonie didn’t disagree.
Husak said, low, “I lied. One other detective does have to be at the pickup.” He looked Doonie in the eye. “Been too long since I strapped on the Kevlar.”
Doonie grinned. Can’t beat having a boss who, when he can’t cover your back with bureaucratic maneuvers, will do it with a pump shotgun.
One Hundred-Fifteen | 2012
Mark cleaned his gun.
Mark got an email from HR informing him he’d exceeded the time limit for doing his post-shooting psych eval. If he didn’t report for the eval within 48 hours he’d be subject to suspension, frowns and disappointed sighs.
Husak, who as CO had been cc’d by HR, wrote back, stating Detective Bergman would report for an eval soon as he completed a high priority undercover assignment that could not be interrupted.
Which consisted of Mark sitting at his desk waiting for the phone to ring.
Mark’s phone rang.
Rarey: Security-cam at the Milwaukee ferry terminal showed Grampa Phipps disembarking with a large wheeled suitcase. Another camera showed Grampa Phipps leaving the area on foot. After which the geriatric and his large luggage evaporated. But the FBI couldn’t go public with a photo of Grampa Phipps; that’d tell the Mastrizzis where to look for him.
Mark looked around; Adams wasn’t in the bullpen. Mark quietly asked Rarey to find out if Kurnit had gotten back to Kelley about what Dale had to say about Branko.
• • •
Mark wondered what JaneDoe was doing.
• • •
Mark and Doonie went to lunch at their Thai joint. A couple of minutes after they sat, Phil Adams wandered in, was surprised to see them, asked if it was okay he joined them.
Mark said sure.
During lunch Adams asked had they heard any scuttlebutt about what Phipps was offering the US Attorney.
Doonie said nah, all we heard was what you heard on the speakerphone in Husak’s office.
When the check came Doonie grabbed it. Adams tried to give him a five. Doonie insisted, my pleasure.
• • •
Late in the afternoon Husak called Mark and Doonie in. Told them Kelley and Kurnit had finalized a deal. Kurnit had no idea when Phipps would contact Mark to arrange the pickup.
When Mark and Doonie returned to their desks, their lunch buddy Adams sauntered over. “Any news?”
“Some heavy shit,” Mark confided. “HR just gave me 48 hours to diddle the shrink, or they pull my badge.”
Adams twitched as Mark’s fuck you sank in. Gave Mark a toxic smirk and stalked away.
• • •
Mark went down to the basement range and killed paper.
Re-cleaned his gun.
• • •
Mark ate dinner alone, at home.
Poured a bourbon. Put on music. Opened a book. His cell rang.
Rarey: “Dale’s lawyer said Dale said Branko had nothing to do with the art scam—or the attempted hit on Dale. He was positive Branko had no reason to want him dead.”
“Shit.”
“Shit because you believe Dale, or shit you think he’s lying?”
“Shit I’m not sure.” Actually Mark was sure Dale was lying, and he didn’t know of anyone but Cousin Eddie who might’ve gotten to Kurnit and Dale.
Mark thanked Rarey and got off the phone.
Finished his bourbon. Looked at the bottle, debating.
Decided to call JaneDoe and ask her to please talk to him.
His cell rang again.
“Hi, how soon can you get to Rockford?” Dale asked.
One Hundred-Sixteen | 2012
The old man stood on the sidewalk with his suitcase, nervously tapping his foot. His wheelman showed up twelve minutes late.
The wheelman was unaware this was a getaway from FBI and Outfit manhunts. He was a gregarious 27-year-old harmonica player named Flying Frog—Call me Froggy!—who was between gigs (nineteen months), owned a 1994 Sentra, and answered a craigslist ad for a driver to take an elderly traveler from Milwaukee to Janesville.
The old man sat in the back seat, explaining it made him feel he was traveling in style, and besides, it was safer in case of a crash—nothing personal, but he had no idea what kind of driver Froggy was.
What Dale really thought was safer was Froggy sitting with his back to him rather than next to him, with a close-up view of his wig, beard and make-up.
When they got to the highway Dale told Froggy he actually needed to go a little farther, over the state line, near Rockford—don’t worry, he’d pay a bonus.
No problemo!
• • •
Dale had Froggy stop at a mall outside of Rockford and park at a sporting goods store. He gave Froggy cash and instructed him to buy a mountain bike. And of course collect another bonus.
Totally no problemo!
• • •
Froggy moved the suitcase from the trunk to the rear seat, and squeezed the bike into the trunk, securing the lid with bungee cords.
They headed away from Rockford, onto a county road, then onto a dirt jeep trail leading into woods adjacent to a state park. Dale told Froggy to stop. Handed Froggy cash that included the bonuses. Asked him to get the bike out of the trunk.
Froggy did. He pointed at the suitcase, which the old man had wrestled out of the back seat himself. “You can’t carry that on the bike.”
“Thank you for your pleasant company and safe driving. Time for you to go.”
Froggy asked, “But you are in shape to ride, right?”
“Yes.”
Froggy grinned, sly. “C’mon, what’s up with the make-up and wig? You a spy?”
“Yes I am, and this is a matter of national security. So in exchange for your cooperation, by which I mean your silence—” Dale handed an envelope to Froggy “—your grateful government will award you an extra five hundred. Please verify the amount.”
Froggy opened the envelope and began counting.
“And, “ Dale said.
Froggy looked up. Dale was pointing a gun at his face.
“If you ever tell anyone about me, I will find out, and you will die. So will whoever you’re with.”
Tommy Tesca’s line. What the fuck, Dale figured, worked on me.
Worked on Froggy too.
• • •
Dale changed into bicycle gear. Stashed the suitcase behind some bushes. Strapped on a backpack containing his essentials.
He walked the bike out to the paved road. It began to drizzle. Dale began to ride. Five miles, to another dirt road, this one a long driveway which led to the place where he’d lost his virginity. An isolated, cushy cabin owned by the parents of Justine Krause, with whom he’d shared a deep meaningful arousal, junior year at Francis Parker.
It had taken only a few minutes online to confirm the property was still owned by Justine’s mom. Who never opened the cabin before Memorial Day, and not then unless it was a warm spring.
And if some younger, more weather-resistant Krauses happened to be in residence, well, Dale would
spend some seriously crappy time hiding in the woods—the drizzle had matured into a pelting rain—until Bergman fetched him.
Because no fucking way was Dale going to turn himself in anywhere near any place big enough for the Mastrizzis to have an associate.
• • •
The cabin was unoccupied. Dale broke in. Removed the dregs of his rain-wrecked make-up. Showered. Dined on expired microwave ramen. Survived it.
When it was late and dark enough, he phoned Bergman.
• • •
“Hi, how soon can you get to Rockford?”
“First I have to assemble the backup, so, let’s say I’ll get there between eleven-thirty and midnight.”
“Not too much backup! I don’t want to draw attention.”
“Just enough backup so nobody can fuck with us. Where exactly in Rockford are you?”
“I’m not. When you’re a mile or two south of Rockford call me. I’ll give you directions.”
“Dale, be safer to tell me now—in case you have phone trouble, or I do, or who knows what. This way we’re covered.”
Dale said, “No.” Gave Bergman his phone number and hung up.
One Hundred-Seventeen | 2012
Lou hung up the phone and told Gianni, “He’s near Rockford. Won’t give the exact location until the cops get there. They’ll be hitting the road in about thirty minutes.” Then, somberly: “Three Chicago cops backed by eight to ten Feds.”
Lou had been unusually blunt in opposing the Old Man on this one. Even if they got a clean shot and only hit Dale—far from guaranteed, winging it like this—doing it while Dale was surrounded by FBI would start a firefight.
Killing a witness is business. Killing FBI starts a war.
Gianni had been typically blunt. This is our one crack at Phipps before he starts yapping. War? This FBI is pure pussy next to what it was under J. Edgar Faggot.
But now that it was go time, Gianni was silent.
Father and son held each other’s gaze. The son’s face neutral. The father’s granite.
Gianni said, “Make the call.”
Lou could refuse. Or give the order, then go behind Gianni’s back and rescind it.
Then he’d have to kill his father before his father killed him.
They stared into each other, sharing that thought, that most ancient father-son animal truth.
Lou made the call.
One Hundred-Eighteen | 2012
As their Crown Vic splashed up the rain-slicked ramp to the 90, followed by an armored FBI SWAT van and an armored FBI Yukon, Doonie declared, “We’re a fuckin’ circus parade.”
“Real Chicago-style parade—in a downpour,” Rarey commented, from the back seat.
“Wasn’t Chicago’s idea to do this tonight, it was Dale’s.”
Rarey was riding with Mark and Doonie because Dale, despite refusing to surrender to anyone but Mark, was entering FBI custody. The agency insisted one of theirs be alongside Mark to take immediate possession.
Mark, who was driving, said, “Storm’s supposed to be gone from Rockford by the time we get there.”
Rarey asked, “You trust weather forecasts?”
“Always.”
Those, the Cubs’ chances, and true love.
• • •
They were ten minutes outside Rockford, heading northwest, when they drove out from under the eastbound storm. The night sky was still opaque with clouds, but they’d stopped pissing. Maybe the Cubs and true love could happen too.
Mark keyed his headset—the whole team was wired—to alert the command center, the FBI SWATs and Husak, who was in the van, that they should prepare to eavesdrop, because he was about to phone Dale.
• • •
Dale picked up a microsecond into the first ring, whispered a tense, “Hel—” and interrupted himself with two fast sharp farts “—lo.”
“Hi,” Mark said in his most therapeutically casual tone. “How’s it going?”
After a moment Dale warily muttered, “Talk some more.”
“C’mon, you know this is my voice.” No reply. “So, wanna go grab a coffee?”
Silence. Doonie rolled his eyes, fed up with this paranoid dipshit.
“The hell with coffee,” Mark coaxed, “we’ll get you a drink. And a blow-job. And a pony. And lifetime job security and subsidized housing.”
Dale made a reluctantly amused noise. “How the hell you end up a cop?”
“Long story, I’m not telling over the phone. Where the fuck are ya?”
Dale recited detailed directions. Warned Mark the driveway was a quarter-mile long. Told Mark to stop at the end of the driveway, facing the cabin, and wait. “Do not call me,” Dale ordered.
“Got it.”
“You stop the car, you stay in it, and you wait until I call you.”
The line went dead.
“Fucker doesn’t even say goodbye,” Doonie groused.
Rarey, consulting a laptop, said, “He’s approximately nineteen minutes from here.”
“Secret FBI GPS?” Doonie wondered.
“Google Maps.”
A large sedan blew past, had to be doing over ninety. A few seconds later a large van did the same.
Watching them disappear up the road, Doonie said, “Smokey’s gonna be writing tickets or bagging bodies. Not that I seen one tonight.”
• • •
Turned out Google’s omniscience was less than; the highway exit Dale instructed Mark to take was blocked by a row of orange safety cones.
“Fucking perfect,” Mark muttered. He sped north, leading the parade to the next exit, where they took an overpass to the other side of the highway, got on and drove back to the southbound side of the correct exit. Only lost about four minutes.
They zigged through a series of ever narrower and hillier county roads, splashing through poorly drained intersections.
The last of which led to Walon Road. It was undulating and unlit, which with tonight’s low cloud deck meant darkness black and thick as used motor oil. Both sides of the road were heavily wooded, the shadowy trees and bushes flickering past in the spill from the headlights.
They found the dirt driveway. Which tonight meant rutted mudway, dotted with the occasional mini-swamp. One of which the Crown Vic got stuck in, rear wheels furiously whining in the muck.
“Could happen to anyone,” Rarey consoled Mark.
The van behind them nudged the Crown Vic out of the miniswamp. Mark stayed in low gear, drove Mars-rover slow as he negotiated the remainder of the slopfest.
The driveway ended at a clearing. The clearing was a semi-circle, sprinkled with gravel to provide traction, but tonight the gravel mainly served as shoreline for a series of enormous puddles.
As instructed, Mark stopped at the clearing’s edge, facing the cabin on the far side of the clearing.
The “cabin” was two stories tall and four bedrooms wide. Ten feet to the left of the cabin there was a garage three cars wide. Fifteen feet to the right of the cabin there was a tool shed three out-houses wide.
The Crown Vic’s high beams did a decent job of illuminating the cabin, a feeble job of revealing the garage and tool shed, then the light crawled off to die in the woods beyond the buildings.
There were no lights on in the cabin.
The FBI van pulled up behind the cop car. Husak (alley-sweeper) and six FBI SWATs (assault rifles) got out and took flanking positions to either side of the Crown Vic.
The Yukon stopped ten feet back of the van. Three SWATs got out. A fourth SWAT had been dropped off near the entrance to the driveway so he could play rear guard, hiding in the trees and keeping an eye on the road.
The cops waited.
Dale didn’t call.
Doonie grimaced at Mark.
“In the woods, nine o’clock! “ a SWAT hissed over the radio.
The SWATs scanned the woods with their night-vision goggles. Nothing.
The SWAT commander asked, “Was that a visual?”
; “Negative,” the first voice replied, “I heard something rustle.”
Mark turned his engine off. Moments later the van and Yukon fell silent.
Ears strained. In vain.
“Raccoon?” a third SWAT theorized—
A thunderclap. Everyone flinched—then relaxed, as their nervous systems made the audio analysis: the blast was an act of nature, not weaponry.
Nature began to drizzle. The drizzle fattened into full-on rain, as if nature opened a faucet. Basic Midwestern cloudburst.
Mark started his windshield wipers and his phone rang.
Mark said, “Hi, you had better be here.”
“Why did you turn your engines off?”
“So we could hear if you farted. C’mon, time to go.”
“Pull up in front of the tool shed, close as you can and still leave room to open your rear door, right in front of the shed door.”
“On my way.”
Mark drove across the clearing, skirting a large puddle whose depth he didn’t want to find out. He eased to a halt in front of the tool shed, aligning the car’s rear passenger-side door with the shed door.
Rarey, in the back seat, opened the car door and pulled back out of the way. The shed door flicked open. Dale, crouched low, hissed “Watch your feet!” and lunged headfirst into the narrow gap between the rear and front seats—Rarey pulling his legs up onto the seat a second ahead of Dale landing. Dale scrunched down on the floor of the car and barked, “Let’s go!”
“First we gotta close the door,” Rarey said, scooting across the rear seat to get at it.
Mark informed the SWATs, “We have the package. I’ll pull up by the garage so your vehicles have room to get in here and turn around.”
“No! Get moving, they can just back down the driveway,” Dale demanded.
“Not happening, that road’s a mess,” Mark said. “If one of those trucks gets stuck, our exit is blocked.” He put the car in gear.
“Dale,” Doonie asked, “you gonna stay down there, whole way back to Chicago?”
“I don’t know—stop! What’re you doing?!”
“Patting you down,” Rarey explained. He extracted a gun tucked into the small of Dale’s back. “That’s one.”
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