City Blood

by Clark Howard

  “Only what Ronnie told me. She mentioned them to me one night on the phone; I think she was a little drunk at the time. The, uh—reason she told me—” Alma hesitated, uncertainty gripping her. “Look, is this going to go into a report of any kind; I mean, be written down later?”

  “Absolutely not,” Kiley assured. “I’m as much at risk in this conversation as you are, believe me.”

  “All right.” She took a quick breath. “The reason that Ronnie told me about the photographs is that she and I used to do the same thing. Not sexually explicit, of course; just what we thought was titillating. When we were teenagers, after we had begun, uh, developing on top, we used to take Polaroid shots of each other in our underwear, posing like the pinups we’d see in magazines. We even removed the underwear sometimes and took close-up shots of—certain parts of our bodies without showing our faces. A couple of times before class we slipped a picture into a textbook of one of the male teachers, just to watch his reaction. Anyway, I think Ronnie told me about her photos because they reminded her of what she and I had done as adolescents. I asked her what kind of pictures she had taken with this guy, this Tony, but she just laughed and said, ‘Pretty hot ones, Al, very hot ones.’ I presume they were quite explicit.” She hesitated a beat, then asked, “Do you know where the pictures are?”

  “I know where they might be. In the apartment of her ex-boyfriend, Tony. But I can’t get in there without a search warrant—and I can’t get a warrant without having some definite connection between him and your sister; something that I can present to a judge to ask for a warrant. You’re certain she never mentioned Tony’s last name?”

  “Sorry. I wish she had.” Alma glanced down, then back up. “Areyou going to tell me his last name?”

  “Not right now,” Kiley said. “I’d rather wait and see if you can learn it yourself; it would make better evidence that way. When you go to pick up your sister’s personal belongings this afternoon, try to find out anything you can. Homicide detectives have already asked some questions, but on something like this people tend to dummy up. You being her sister, they might feel sorry for you, open up a little more. Ask about her friends, who she knew, who visited her there where she lived—”

  “Yes, all right. I’ll go through her things too,” Alma volunteered. “Maybe she has letters, or an address book—”

  “The Homicide detectives have already done that; they’re looking for Tony too. But anything’s worth a try.” Kiley took out a card, one of his old GA cards, crossed off the Warren Boulevard precinct number, and wrote in the B-and-A number. “If you can call me in the morning, around nine, to let me know whether you came up with anything or not, I’d appreciate it.”

  “All right, I will.” Lowering her glance, Alma toyed with her cup. “I want to thank you for—well, being interested. I realize that the death of—a person like Ronnie had become—probably isn’t all that important in a place like Chicago. I appreciate you and your partner trying to find who did it on your own time. I’m just very sorry you had to suffer a personal loss too.”

  “It’s nice of you to say that,” Kiley replied. Rising, he said, “I’ll drop you at your hotel, if you want.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  As soon as Kiley got back to his desk at B-and-A, he called Gloria Mendez.

  “Anything yet?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, her tone suggesting something noteworthy. She fell silent then, her way of telling Kiley it was not to be discussed over the phone.

  “Want to meet somewhere?”

  “I can’t get out of here, Joe. That situation with those three kids they found hanged has got this place jumping; they’re asking for files on sex offenders now: Two of the kids were sodomized.”

  “Jesus Christ—” Kiley shook his head, then was glad still again that he had used a sap on that degenerate who raped the six little girls a couple of years ago. He had broken the pervert’s nose, all of his fingers, and was slugging away at his genitals when two uniforms pulled him off.

  Shaking his head, Kiley threw the memory back down in his mind and refused to let himself think further of the three little kids just found. “How do you want to handle it?” he asked Gloria Mendez.

  “Why don’t you come over to my place again,” she suggested. “I want to talk to you about this stuff anyway. Come over about six; I’m home and changed by then.”

  “See you at six,” Kiley agreed.

  Captain Madzak walked up to his desk. “Finished with that homicide vic’s sister?” he asked.

  “Yessir. Just about to type up the FR for you and the deputy chief.”

  “Then you’ll be on the bus bomber, right?”

  “Right, Captain.”

  When Madzak walked away, Kiley got out a Field Report triplicate set and put it into the typewriter next to his desk. The typewriter was on a stand with wheels, so Kiley unplugged it and rolled it back to the computer bank. Parking it on an angle next to an unoccupied monitor, he plugged it into another outlet, sat down, and turned both typewriter and terminal on. With his notebook open, he first keyed into the terminal: WINSTON, Harold Paul. Then he accessed DMV for automobile registration and drivers license. While he waited for the data base to be searched, he turned to the typewriter and typed the date and subject matter on the FR form. Presently the monitor showed:

  Winston, Harold Paul

  No Record

  Kiley accessed central credit bureau records, and went back to his typing while he waited. When the credit bureau file came up, it showed Winston with a Visa card and accounts at two department store chains; all had small balances, all showed prompt payment. Kiley moved the monitor’s cursor up to the file menu and asked for the subject’s credit application on the Visa account. It came up almost instantly. Dated four years earlier, it showed that Harold Paul Winston was 46 years old, unmarried, no dependents, residing at 3312 N. Kalvin Avenue for three years, employed as a stock clerk for Food Services Restaurant Supplies for nine months. Credit record clean, Visa card approved.

  Kiley next accessed Commonwealth Edison records for 3312 N. Kalvin Avenue, which was also the address on Winston’s arrest sheet. It took a couple of minutes for that, so Kiley managed to get a full paragraph typed on the FR about taking Alma Lynn to the morgue. Then the monitor displayed a record:

  Winston, Harold Paul

  3312 N. Kalvin Avenue Apt. D

  Service connected 4-10-90

  No previous service history

  Deposit required: $30

  I wonder, Kiley thought, where this psycho lived before Kalvin Avenue? He copied the information into his notebook, turned off the terminal, and resumed typing the FR.

  Twenty minutes later, Kiley had given the FR to Captain Madzak, had it approved by him, and was on his way out of the Shop. He did not bother checking out another unmarked police pool car, preferring to use his own. That way he would not have to account for hours checked out or miles driven.

  Kiley left the south edge of the Loop and headed for the Northwest Side on the Kennedy Expressway. As he cruised along in the fast lane, he tried to analyze what he had heard in Gloria Mendez’s voice a little while earlier. “Oh, yes,” she had said when he’d asked her if she had anything on the seven license plate numbers. There had been something in her tone that implied importance; then something in her immediate silence that added caution. He did not want to let his hopes get too high, did not want to speculate that some kind of major lead would come out of Gloria’s information; yet the feeling was definitely there that her voice, her prudence, had to be indicators of something significant. That and the fact that he had decided at their first meeting that Gloria Mendez was a very solid cop.

  Leaving the Expressway at Belmont, Kiley drove into the 3300-block of North Kedzie, then cut over to Kalvin Avenue and found number 3312. It was a six-flat, not unlike the building in which Kiley himself lived. Parking in the middle of the block, Kiley got out and locked his car. Walking back toward the beginning of
the block, he gave the building closer scrutiny on foot than he had been able to from the car. It was a little newer than Mrs. Levine’s eight-flat, but no better kept up. Apartment D, Kiley guessed, was on the second floor. At the corner, Kiley looked down two blocks to the cross street, Elston Avenue, where he knew there was a bus line that extended from the Loop out to the Northwest suburbs. Since Winston had no drivers license and owned no car, he probably used public transportation—unless, of course, he worked somewhere in the neighborhood, within walking distance. Kiley was certain the little man had lied when he said he was not currently employed; the frown, the shifting away of his eyes, were classic signs to Kiley: the former manifesting the subject’s split-second indecisiveness about whether to tell the truth; the latter an evasiveness of eye contact after deciding on, and telling, a lie.

  Crossing to the side of Kalvin on which Winston’s building stood, Kiley retraced his route, walked directly past number 3312, and continued on to the corner in that direction. From there, looking south now, he saw, another two blocks down, an elevated track which he knew to be the Belmont Avenue El station. Another possible line of public transportation for Winston, since it, like the Elston Avenue bus, also ran between downtown and the bedroom communities.

  Kiley bought a Sun-Times from a vending box and started back to his car to sit and wait. Once he knew from which direction Winston returned home, he would probably know which mode of public transportation Winston took; then, by getting on that bus or that El train himself at one end of the line, or both if necessary, Kiley would be able to “accidentally” run into Winston a couple of times—or, more accurately, let Winston run into him, because Kiley would already be a passenger when Winston boarded—and from there Kiley would begin to handle him, work him, maneuver him into tumbling some evidence. It should not be too difficult, Kiley though; he was convinced that Winston wanted to be caught, that he—

  Suddenly Kiley had to interrupt his analytical thinking and put his mind into an emergency response mode—because walking toward him from the other end of the block was Harold Paul Winston. Quickly turning to the building nearest him, Kiley entered the ground-floor foyer. Had he been seen? he wondered urgently. If he had, at this early stage, it would effectively botch his whole plan. Through the glass of the foyer door, Kiley was able to watch until Winston came into view. The little man was ambling along seemingly unaware of Kiley’s presence; he did not even glance over at the building from which he was now being watched. Lucky, Kiley thought, very fucking lucky; he told himself he’d better stay more alert if he wanted the freedom that fieldwork provided, and not get stuck shuffling papers at some desk job because he let Captain Madzak down.

  Kiley watched, expecting Winston to go all the way into his building, after which Kiley planned to wait perhaps a full minute, then saunter casually up to where his car was parked, and split. But less than a minute after Winston had disappeared into his own foyer, just as Kiley reached for the doorknob to leave, back out came Winston, the day’s mail in his hand, whistling, and continued on down the block. Where the hell was he going? Kiley wondered, stepping back from the door so Winston wouldn’t see him. For a paper maybe, or to get something for supper? If he lived alone like Kiley did, he probably subsisted a lot like Kiley did: frozen dinners, take-out food, an occasional steak at one of the chain of Sizzler’s. Maybe he read his mail while he ate.

  As Winston proceeded down to the corner, crossed the intersection, and walked on toward Belmont Avenue, Kiley emerged from the foyer and at a discreet distance followed him. Winston sauntered along as if he hadn’t a care in the world, never once looking back. Dressed in slacks and a light-colored windbreaker, carrying his mail, whistling, nobody observing him in this older Northwest Side neighborhood, Kiley thought, would possibly ever suspect that he might be a lunatic bus bomber. Criminals, Kiley had frequently, and fervently, wished in his younger, uniformed days, ought to look like criminals. So often they didn’t; so often they looked like—sometimes were—the next-door neighbor, or somebody’s seemingly harmless cousin, or a little old lady with six cats. A cop’s job would be infinitely easier if people who looked nice always were nice.

  When Winston turned the corner into the shadow of the Belmont Avenue El station, Kiley fell into a trot and double-timed toward the opposite corner in order not to lose him. He got to the corner just in time to see the little man enter a door under a sign that read: BEL-KED TAVERN.

  Kiley’s face took on a satisfied expression. This was far better than he had hoped; far, far better than “running into” Winston on a bus or an El. This was as sweet as it got.

  Newspaper under his arm, Kiley walked back to his car, very pleased with his luck. When you found out where a man drinks, he knew, you had found out where the man talked.

  It was six-thirty and still light outside when Kiley parked on Gloria Mendez’s block and walked down to her building. Meralda was on the steps in front of the entry, talking with two young Puerto Ricans who both wore the red and green colors of the Latin Princes.

  “Good evening, Detective,” the teenager said elaborately, for the benefit of her friends.

  “Hello, kid,” Kiley replied, causing her sassy expression to become annoyed. The two Princes gave Kiley what he imagined they thought were hard-guy looks, which he ignored completely.

  When Gloria, in jeans and sweatshirt again, opened the apartment door for him, Kiley said, “Your daughter is in fast company downstairs.”

  “I know,” Gloria said wearily. “I’m going to get her out of this barrio as soon as I can afford to. Anyway,” she became a little ethnically defensive, “some of the Princes aren’t bad kids, not really.”

  Kiley wasn’t going to argue the point. If Meralda was his kid, he would have left the two punks busted up in the alley, then laid a heavy belt across the girl’s shapely little ass. But that was him.

  “Come on in the kitchen,” Gloria said, leading the way. Once there, she added, “Excuse the mess; Meralda was supposed to clean up in here today—”

  Kiley noted a sink full of dirty dishes, garbage that needed taking out, and a basket of unironed clothes in the corner. In his mind he silently seconded his earlier thought: a belt, right across the ass.

  “You like some coffee?” Gloria asked.

  “Sure.” What he really wanted was the information she had, but he knew he had to let her take her time. Women, he had learned over the years, break rules slower than men.

  After pouring two cups of coffee at the kitchen table, Gloria took a single sheet of paper from atop the refrigerator and handed it to Kiley. “I think you’ll find this interesting—”

  Kiley’s eyes scanned downward from the top of the sheet, along a single column of printed data that showed seven blocks of three items each: license plate number, make and model of vehicle, name of registered owner. The first five blocks were for three Cadillacs and two Lincoln Town Cars, with the names of the registered owners being Morelli, Dellafranco, Morowski, O’Shea, and Hennessey. All were known mob names: the two Italians from the South and West side mobs of the city; the two Irishmen from the North Side family of Phil Touhy; the Polack in the mob that controlled the O’Hare International Airport area. A sixth block of information, pertaining to a Lincoln Mark VIII, showed registration to Prestige Automobile Leasing Company, in upper-class suburban Lake Forest.

  But it was the seventh and last block of information that Gloria Mendez had, correctly, believed would interest Joe Kiley the most. It read:

  LICENSE: 67RY410

  MAKE/MODEL: Chevrolet 93 Corvette Custom Eleven

  REGISTERED OWNER: Lamont, Frazier Leroy

  That had been the plate, Kiley remembered, on which information was restricted to the Street Gangs Squad. He had thought it odd at the time, but had no way to pursue it at that moment. Now he frowned as the name worked its way through his memory. “Frazier Leroy Lamont—” Suddenly his expression signaled surprise to Gloria. “Fraz Lamont?”

  “Fraz Lamont,”
she confirmed. “Undisputed leader of the Disciples.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Kiley said. “The Disciples and the mob?”

  “I know it doesn’t make sense,” Gloria shrugged. “But that was his car. The Disciples must be doing pretty good, too; do you know what a Custom Eleven ’Vette runs? Sixty-five and change.” She shook her head wryly. “Maybe I ought to tell Meralda to go hang out with the Disciples instead of those Latin Princes.”

  Kiley took a long sip of coffee. His frown remained in place. The Disciples had been the premier and predominant black street gang in Chicago since a combined federal-state-county-city law enforcement effort had so diminished its predecessor, the El Rukns, that the latter no longer controlled much of anything. The primary turf of the Disciples was the Cabrini-Green housing project and its adjacent neighborhoods: a sprawling, inner-city, primarily black ghetto bounded on one side by a sooty, stinking, smokestacked industrial area that fed daily off the sweat of thousands of factory workers; and on the other side by trendy, upscale, invogue Yuppie City, a neat residential area where chic young moderns with university degrees had gathered to live and interact.

  Where once it had been praised as a glowing solution to the expansion of tenement neighborhoods, “the Green” had, with surprising dispatch, itself become an urban bog of the first magnitude: a vast concrete maze of drug deals, gang shootings, fear, intimidation, and ongoing black-on-black terrorism. Rising to the scum level of this swamp had been a bottom-feeding but charismatic young ex-Muslim, ex-convict, and ex-victim named Frazier Leroy “Fraz” Lamont, who had wormed his way into the projects drug trade and, by various covert acts of violence, soon worked up to an executive position. At the time, there were perhaps half a dozen minor gangs in the Green, none seeming to have an edge over the others, all of them barely surviving by scrounging what share they could of the then wide-open drug-trade competition. Fraz Lamont saw at once what the problem was: too little control over too many distributors. Or in his own words, later preserved for posterity by a Tribune feature writer granted an interview, “Too many motherfucking chiefs, man, and not enough motherfiicking Indians.”