City Blood

by Clark Howard

  The time would come, however, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the organized crime operation which had prospered for so long under Fred Scarp’s guidance, began, during Scarp’s gradual retirement process, to be challenged by the new and fearless black street gangs, beginning with the powerful El Rukns. The Rukns were the first organized blacks to get in organized crime’s face—and they did it with automatic weapons. For the first time in the mob’s history, it was faced with a competitor as opposed to a police agency, that equaled it not only in firepower but in viciousness as well. For a number of years, there was violent strife between various elements of the mob and the El Rukns, then with smaller, splinter gangs such as the Black Mambas, the VD.s or Violent Dudes, and the Trey-Sevens, a gang laying claim to all of 37th Street. Then, ultimately, came Fraz Lamont and the Disciples. Mob profits diminished in the areas coming under control of the black gangs, but gang income did not increase because they did not have the business acumen to efficiently operate what they had acquired.

  It may not have been immediately clear to those closest to the mob that an important element was missing in their underworld community—but it must have become very obvious outside that sphere. The element, of course, was a Fred Scarp figure who could draw in all the disputants involved and work at resolving differences and promoting harmony. Who better to undertake such a task than one of the highest-ranking, most honored and respected police department executives in Chicago, a man who not only had access to the heads of the mob families but also, because of his participation in command-level law enforcement meetings, had inside information on the workings of the black street gangs. Who else besides someone like Gordon Lovat? Mr. OCB himself. Mr. O.

  Knowing it was true did not make it any easier for Kiley to believe it—but there was no way he could logically disbelieve it. Too many facts were now nailed down.

  Phil Touhy had learned almost at once that the surveillance of his brother Tony by Kiley and Nick was unauthorized—which permitted Touhy to come in with his lawyer and legally challenge the investigation. His information could only have come from one of a handful of people at that time—and Lovat was among them. Lovat had worked out the deal with the department to kill the investigation of Tony Touhy.

  Gloria Mendez’s death—her staged suicide—had to have been brought about by knowledge on the part of someone that she had provided, or was providing, confidential department information to Joe Kiley. Lovat, after being told by his son-in-law Matthew Field of the fake insurance call to Prestige Auto, must have become very apprehensive that Kiley was trying to identify the driver of the Mark VIII. He must have decided that it was simply too risky to allow Gloria to remain a factor in the situation, given her unlimited access to confidential records. So he had her killed.

  And the logical reason for Nick Bianco’s spur-of-the-moment murder must have been that he walked in on that meeting and saw Gordon Lovat there. Fraz Lamont, Kiley decided, really had not known the reason for Nick’s killing, because Fraz Lamont had not known that Mr. O was a high-ranking police officer. Neither the mob bosses nor Lovat would have trusted the street gang leader that far. Fraz had said that none of them were strapped that night, that he didn’t even know where Tony Touhy had come up with the gun to kill Nick. He did not know that the one person there who would have been carrying was the “arbitrator”—because that person was a cop.

  In the beginning, Kiley had set out to deal only with Nick’s killer. Then circumstances had imposed on him the additional responsibility of determining the identification of and dealing with Gloria’s killer. Now he knew that he also had to deal with Lovat. Every time he turned around, there seemed to be someone new who qualified as a target for his revenge.

  As he was pondering the glut of perplexing facts that seemed to be ricocheting off the inside walls of his head, Kiley glanced over and saw that Reggie was once again sitting up alertly, looking straight ahead at the blackness of the painted sunglasses. Kiley frowned suspiciously.

  “You got any idea where we are?” he asked.

  “Kind of,” Reggie admitted.

  “Goddamn it, Reggie. You’re not supposed to know where you’re going.”

  “I can’t help it,” Reggie almost whined. “I got a natural instinct for direction, Joe. You got to remember that most of my previous work involved moving around in the dark.”

  “Where do you think we are right now?” Kiley quizzed. He didn’t see how Reggie could possibly have kept up with all the turns they had made.

  “Right now? Well, let’s see,” Reggie replied. “I’d say we somewhere out around Chevalier Woods, heading toward the airport.”

  “Dead wrong,” Kiley declared. “Not even close.” They had just passed an expressway sign that read: CHICAGO-O’HARE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT 3 MI. Kiley pushed the radio scanner button again, got another news broadcast, and said, “Let’s talk about Somalia. What do you think about the situation in Somalia?”

  “I think if we not very careful, we going to find ourselves in another Vietnam,” Reggie replied clinically. “Problem is, Joe, we got a redneck with a yellow streak in the White House. Mix red, yellow, and white, and you get the color of most shit. One thing this country don’t need is more shit.” A big commercial jet could be heard coming in low for a landing. Reggie started humming quietly to himself, a smug look on his face.

  “All right,” Kiley conceded, “take the fucking glasses off if you want to.”

  “No, I’ll keep them on,” Reggie decided. “Least I won’t know what kind of place I’m opening. How much further?”

  “Not very far,” Kiley said.

  Less than five minutes later, Kiley turned off the expressway and drove north for a short distance, then west again. The farther away from the ex pressway they got, the quieter and more deserted the night became. Kiley had been out to their destination each of the past two nights after work; he already knew exactly which route he was going to take, and he also knew the approximate times of the local police patrol around where they were going. Glancing at the dashboard clock now, he verified for himself that the timing was good: it was almost midway between times for the patrol to pass.

  Presently, Kiley slowed and guided the car into a narrow, unlighted alley, turning off the headlights as he did.

  “We there?” Reggie asked. Just a hint of nervousness. Wearing the glasses, Kiley decided. Without them, Reggie probably wouldn’t even sweat.

  Kiley stopped the car, put the gearshift in park to leave the engine on, and quickly went around to open the passenger door. Reggie was pulling on a pair of gloves.

  “Come on—” Kiley whispered. He guided Reggie out of the car and a matter of only five steps to a door. “Okay, it’s right in front of you—”

  Reggie removed the glasses and handed them to Joe. With a penlight, he shined a needle beam on the lock.

  “This is it?” he whispered incredulously. “This is the fucking door?”

  “Yeah. Come on—” The nervousness was now in Kiley’s voice.

  “What the fuck is this place,” Reggie asked contemptuously, “a second-hand store?” He removed a small suede case from his inside coat pocket and unzipped it. “Don’t even need lock picks for this,” he muttered. “Could have just brought a paper clip, or a bobby pin—” Reggie was quiet for about forty seconds, then said, “Okay.”

  “Okay what?” Kiley asked.

  “Okay, the fucking door is open,” Reggie said irascibly. “What the fuck do you think?”

  Kiley reached out in the dark to assure himself that the door indeed was open. “Jesus,” he said under his breath, surprised at how quickly it had been accomplished. “Okay, fix it so it won’t lock,” he whispered.

  Kiley was aware of movement on Reggie’s part, and presently heard a soft metal click. “Fixed,” Reggie told him. There was the slightest movement of air as Reggie drew the door closed. Kiley handed him the glasses and he put them back on. Then Kiley led him back to the car.

  Seconds
later, Kiley was guiding the car out of the opposite end of the alley, turning the headlights on, and driving back toward the main road that led to the expressway.

  “I hope you don’t plan to take the fucking scenic route to get me home,” Reggie said.

  “I don’t”

  “Good. I need to get some sleep, got a business to run in the morning.”

  Reggie waited until Kiley made a turn and increased their speed enough for him to know that the car was again on an expressway, then he removed the blackened sunglasses, examined them for a moment in the dashboard light, and finally tossed them onto the backseat.

  “I guess you know, Joseph, that you have got my curiosity most highly aroused,” he said. “I presume you are going back to that place after you get rid of me.”

  “Do me a favor, Reggie, don’t presume,” Kiley said.

  “What I don’t dig is what you’re going to do when you get back, that you couldn’t have done when we was there.”

  “Will you just forget it?”

  Reggie turned his head to look out the window. “You don’t trust me,” he said, trying to pout.

  “If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t commit a felony with you,” Kiley differed.

  “Well, you don’t trust me enough, then.” Reggie sighed as dramatically as he could manage. “I prob’ly won’t get no sleep all night long tonight, just wondering what that place was.”

  “Drop it, Reggie.” Kiley’s voice flattened now, its tone leveling to cold seriousness. “I do trust you—but this is a very serious thing.”

  “Oh, yeah? How serious?”

  “As serious as it can get. Now drop it.”

  “Sound to me like you talking about something really bad, old friend,” Reggie kidded with a smile. “I hope you not fixing to put nobody’s lights out.”

  Kiley only glanced at Reggie, without speaking. Reggie stared hard at Kiley for a long moment, the sodium lights over the expressway giving them both an iridescent alien cast. Slowly it dawned on Reggie that he had been probing for a truth he would not have wanted to hear. He faced forward, eyes off Kiley, and concentrated his gaze on the four lanes of expressway, with Chicago’s night skyline on the horizon. Neither man spoke for what seemed like a long time as that skyline grew larger and more defined. The silence became heavier with each mile, as if it was opening a fissure between them. Slowly, they each began to realize that something was happening, that this night and what had occurred was somehow affecting their relationship, that each of them had taken a step away from the other and from which there was no return. Their friendship, at least as they had known it, would never be the same again.

  As they approached the Lake Street exit, near the Loop, Reggie said, “Say, Joe, instead of taking me home, run me down to Rush Street, will you? I want to find me an all-nighter and get something to eat.”

  “You sure?” Kiley asked. “No trouble for me to get on the Dan Ryan and run you back—”

  “No, no, listen, just drop me on Rush. I’ll eat and then hop a Jackson Station train out to 58th. No problem.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure—”

  “I’m sure.”

  Kiley exited, drove down to Michigan, crossed the river, and cut back to Rush Street. He let Reggie out at the Lennox House.

  “Okay, I’ll see you, my man,” Reggie said from the curb.

  “Yeah. Thanks for the help, Reggie. Stay loose, okay?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  They locked eyes for a moment, then Reggie turned and walked down the street.

  Kiley made an illegal U-turn and headed back for the expressway.

  Forty-five minutes later, Kiley parked his car on a dark, quiet street, one block from the building with the door that Reggie had opened and left unlocked for him.

  From the trunk of his car, Kiley removed a leather gym bag. He walked briskly along the silent street, keeping well in the shadows, and turned down to the mouth of the alley. Stepping into it, he stood back against the side of a building and waited a full three minutes—eyes searching what the streetlights allowed him to see, ears scanning the night for sound. When he felt assured that his presence was unknown, he proceeded down the alley to the unlocked door.

  At the door, Kiley put the gym bag on the ground, blotted his forehead with a handkerchief, and pulled on a pair of surgical gloves. Picking up the gym bag, he slowly turned the knob, opening the door.

  Sweating profusely, he entered.

  Twenty-Eight

  At eleven o’clock on Saturday morning, Kiley was parked in the next block down from Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in the western suburb of Madison Acres, where he had killed Fred Scarp.

  From a vantage point near the corner of that block, he was able to watch a constant queue of expensive cars and limousines drive up to discharge at the church entrance passengers arriving to attend funeral services for the murdered former mob boss. There were news media in evidence also: vans, video camera people, and still photographers with telephoto lenses balanced on tripods. Private uniformed security guards were managing to keep everything reasonably in order for the services, which were scheduled for eleven-thirty. From where he sat, Kiley could see florist delivery vehicles arriving one after another with wreaths and other tributes.

  By eleven-twenty, most traffic had stopped and only a few late arrivals were driving up. Kiley left his car and walked up the street, past the church, and on to a small community park at the far end of the block. He sat on a bench and deliberated on the knowledge that it had actually been him who had brought about all the activity going on at the church at that moment. His solitary act had put in motion hundreds of people in many diverse walks of life—from organized crime mobster to florist delivery man, private security guard to parish priest, news reporter to limousine driver, mortician to airline ticket agent to grave digger to—

  Whatever—he had caused it.

  As he sat there, Kiley did not regret what he had done—at least, not regret it specifically, not regret what he had done to Fred Scarp. What he regretted was Nick being dead and all the grief and anguish he himself had directly or indirectly generated by his suggestion that he and Nick go after Ronnie Lynn’s killer themselves. If he could reverse that, he would have; if he could change places in death with Nick, he would—in an instant, without hesitation: he would give Nick back to Stella and the girls, set their lives right again, and keep Stella from a marriage to that low-life prick Frank Bianco. But life and death, Kiley knew, could only be advanced, not turned back, and he had to live with what he had already caused—and what he would cause.

  After half an hour, Kiley returned to his car and sat watching until the funeral mass ended and the mourners began filing out of the church to line the broad front steps and wait while inside the extended family of Frank Scarp paid its last respects before the casket was closed. After a few minutes, Kiley saw the casket being carried out to a hearse in front of the church. Picking up his binoculars from the seat beside him, he focused on the five pallbearers he could see clearly from the car. The one in front was Phil Touhy. Directly behind him was a swarthy man with slick black hair. Augie Dellafranco, Kiley guessed. Next came a face that was etched in Kiley’s mind from the pornographic tapes and photos he had seen when he had tossed the Lake Shore Drive apartment: Tony Touhy. The man directly behind the younger Touhy was unknown to Kiley, but he knew it had to be one of the two out-of-towners that the funeral notice in the previous day’s Tribune had said would also be pallbearers: Abe Lovitz and Nate Taub, cousins and Jewish bosses of the Detroit rackets. Another swarthy man, younger, slicker, was holding up the end of the casket where Fred Scarp’s head was. That would be Al Morelli, Kiley thought, the number-two man to Dellafranco.

  As the casket was being placed into the hearse, Kiley saw briefly that the pallbearers on the opposite side of it were Larry Morowski, Mickey O’Shea, Jocko Hennessey, and another stranger, who had to be the other Jewish cousin from Detroit. Kiley knew nothing about Lovitz or Taub, exce
pt that they had not, to his knowledge, been at the Shamrock Club meeting or involved in Nick Bianco’s killing. But they were in the rackets, they were dirty, so Kiley did not waste any time worrying about them being there. It was their choice to lie down with dogs.

  As soon as the casket was in the hearse, Kiley started the engine of his car and drove away. He got on Irving Park Road and headed west along the southern edge of O’Hare Airport, and almost immediately into the suburb of Mt. Canaan. He stayed on the same road as it bisected Mt. Canaan and eventually reached New Saints Cemetery. Driving once slowly through the cemetery, he noted three open grave sites with canvas spread over the removed dirt, and padded folding chairs arranged around the graves for the deceased’s family during the brief burial services. A stake driven in the ground at each location held a neatly lettered sign bearing the name of the person being buried and the time of the service.

  The Scarp plot was near the east side of the cemetery; the sign at the edge of the pathway read: FREDERICO ANGELO SCARPELLI—1:30 P.M. Checking his watch, Kiley saw that it was five past one. The other burials, he knew from the signs, were at two-thirty and three-thirty, so there would be no other corteges in the cemetery while Scarp’s was there.

  Scanning the area, Kiley saw that just beyond the east boundary of New Saints, bordering the grounds but at a lower elevation, was the meandering Wolf River, and beyond that, at a higher point, was a drive that followed the course of the river, Wolf River Road. At most any point along its route, it presented a perfect vantage point over and down into the cemetery.

  Driving out the rear gate of the grounds, which was the exit one procession of cars used while another was entering the front, Kiley cut east across the narrow, greenish river, then doubled back west following the riverbank, watchful of the cemetery across the way until he came again to the area where Fred Scarp’s grave site was open. Pulling to the side of the road, Kiley parked and waited.

  At one-twenty, Fred Scarp’s funeral procession came slowly down the cemetery drive. The two lead vehicles, which bore the flower tributes, halted first and their drivers and two assistants quickly began transferring wreaths and other floral arrangements from the cars to the canvas-covered mound of dirt behind the open grave. When the men were finished, the two flower vehicles were pulled up out of the way and the main hearse, carrying the casket, moved into place. The nine pallbearers came forward from another car and stood waiting as all the cars in the procession halted one by one and their passengers got out and moved as an unbound group over to the grave site. The family mourners then emerged from several hearses directly behind the casket hearse, and they all made their way over to the folding chairs arranged for them.