Dillon saw the massive orange locomotive, the hog, pulling a dozen boxcars and a half-dozen flats. He ran in front of its path, plenty of lead time, and moments later heard it pass behind him. The horn blaring after he was already gone, the engineer thinking he was just another transient, squatting in one of the nearby abandoned buildings. The train kept rolling, thacking out a steady beat. Dillon kept running, watching his steps so that he didn’t trip. He was in good shape for his age, but he was not a jogger and he was losing wind. He saw a boxcar ahead to his left and ran to it. When he got to the other side, he leaned back against it and tried to rest and think.
Hastings waited for the Union Pacific line to pass by then ran behind it, ran over tracks, then slowed and stopped and looked.
More tracks, railroad cars, dark places where a man could crouch and hide. In the distance he could see Interstate 44, hear its traffic. He looked left and right, moved forward.
Behind the boxcar, Dillon too looked to his left and right. East was the Kingshighway Bridge, darker underneath it. But between this place and the bridge there was a lot of open ground. Police cars had been driving over that bridge only minutes ago. There could be more posted up there, maybe with a searchlight, the advantage of being able to look down on him. To the west, more tracks. Go that way maybe half a mile and the tracks would converge. Less cover, but less light too. There was another boxcar on another track, southwest, maybe forty yards away, open ground between there and here, but he needed to move.
He moved.
And Hastings saw him. Saw him and raised the shotgun and fired. And missed. Hastings racked the slide, but Dillon was behind the boxcar now, putting his hands around the corner, and firing shots from his pistol.
Hastings ran to his left and took cover behind the boxcar Dillon had previously used to hide himself. Two more shots, but Hastings was sheltered then, and Dillon stopped wasting bullets.
Silence.
Hastings waited. Somehow, he knew he should wait.
Five seconds dragged by.
Then he heard the man call out to him.
“Hey,” Dillon said. “Hey.”
Hastings called back, “What?”
“Did I get you?”
Hastings processed it for a moment. The killer was calling him out. Enjoying it.
“Huh?” Dillon said again. “Did I get you?”
“Yeah,” Hastings called back. “Someone needs to call an ambulance.”
More silence. Then Hastings heard the man laugh.
“Ah, I didn’t get you,” Dillon said. “Shit. Wasted shots.”
Hastings said, “You’ll get over it.”
“Yeah, right. Hey, I know you?”
“No.”
“You’re metro, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Man, what do you guys want with me?”
“Well,” Hastings said, “you killed three police officers. Around here, we don’t like that.”
“You’re not clipped. Yet. Why don’t you just turn around and go?”
“Maybe I will.”
“No, come on, man. Seriously. You got a wife and kids, don’t you? Go home and have dinner with them. Go home alive.”
Hastings said, “Why don’t you come with me? Step out and we’ll discuss it.”
Dillon looked at the side of the boxcar. There was a rung in front of him, a few feet to his left. A ladder rung running up the side of the car.
“Buddy,” Dillon said, “I’m not worth dying over.”
Dillon took one hand off his pistol and put it on the rung.
Hastings said, “You’re right about that.” Hastings began edging away from the corner of his boxcar.
Dillon was climbing the ladder now.
He said, “What’s this all about anyway? Salary and a pension? It doesn’t mean anything. No one will care, no one will know. Just move on.”
Dillon had his hands on the top of the boxcar now. He peered over the edge, made sure it was clear. He climbed on top, stayed down at first. He had seen the cop briefly. Plainclothes, probably a detective. The same one standing by the door with the what the fuck expression on his face as Dillon drove the Thunderbird out of the garage. He was talking cool, but had to be scared while he waited for a helicopter or SWAT to show up and bail his ass out.
Dillon got to his knees and looked out over the boxcar. He stood up, put both hands on the pistol.
“All right,” Dillon said, “what can you offer me if I surrender?” Waiting now for the cop to step out and look across the yard as Dillon stood over him.
Hastings rounded the second corner of his boxcar and saw the man as he spoke, saw the man standing on top of the boxcar looking, concentrating on the corner where Hastings had been. Hastings raised the shotgun, aimed, and squeezed the trigger.
The shot took Dillon full in the side and punched him off the boxcar.
Hastings ran around to the other side, pumping another shell in the chamber as he did so, knowing the damage buckshot did at this range but not taking any chances on this one, still hoping it would not be necessary to fire on him again.
It wasn’t. Dillon lay on his back, twisted and broken and half of his side cracked open. He had not been able to hold onto his pistol.
Hastings stood over him.
Dillon looked up at him, grinning and gasping, his wound making noises on its own.
Hastings held the shotgun at his side, something taken out of him now.
“God,” Dillon said, “I didn’t even know you were over there. You part Indian or something?”
Hastings knew there wouldn’t be much time. He said, “You shot Cain.”
Dillon still gasping. He said, “Which one was he?”
Hastings said nothing. He was tired now. He felt no shame or remorse, but he could not take pleasure in seeing this beast suffer either.
Dillon said, “You sure I don’t know you?”
“Yeah,” Hastings said. “I’m sure.”
“Ohhhh … well,” Dillon said, “I guess there are worse ways to die.”
FORTY-THREE
The nurse told him that he would have to have clothes brought to him when he checked out; his pants and shirt had been cut off in the emergency room. They still had his shoes and his jacket, though there were bloodstains on them both. Regan waited for the nurse or the doctor to tell him the police wanted to talk to him. Neither one of them did. The nurse’s assistant was friendly though, smiling at him because he was dangerous and handsome.
Regan had never stayed in a hospital before. He supposed he could sneak out of the room, stand out in the hall in bare ass, and look for some clothes. But he had had his identification on him when he was shot, which he was sure the police had looked at by now, so there wouldn’t be much point. He woke up at seven o’clock, the usual time. Except on this morning, the morphine had worn off and he felt like someone had driven over his midsection with a tractor. He found a remote next to his bed and turned the TV on because he couldn’t get back to sleep and he told himself that the best plan was to remain cool until he could walk out of here.
That was how he found out Dillon was dead. Shot by the police in a railroad yard sometime in the night. Jimmy was dead too, though he had already known that. He watched images on the screen, a plainclothes detective walking up an incline toward two wrecked cars, one of them a police cruiser, the detective holding a shotgun with one hand, down at his side.
Jesus, it was done. Mike Dillon, nailed with a shotgun.
Would he have to give his half of the money back to Zans?
The nurse came in with a cup of water and some pain pills and advised him to take them. He did and was asleep in ten minutes.
When he woke up, the sun was brighter in his room. And there was a guy sitting in the visitor’s chair. The same guy he had seen on television. Surreal.
Hastings said, “How you feeling?”
Regan said, “Tired.”
“Yeah, well, you lost a lot of blood.”
Regan said, “Apparently.” The cop didn’t have the shotgun with him.
Hastings said, “Planning on going home soon?”
“Hoping to,” Regan said. “I’ll have to call my wife, have her come get me.”
“Don’t feel up to driving?”
“No.”
Hastings said, “Planning on taking the gun back with you?”
“What gun?”
“The one found in your jacket after you passed out,” Hastings said. “It’s not registered to you, but then they never are, are they?”
Regan shrugged.
“Still,” Hastings said, “it’s got your prints all over it.”
“So what?”
“So nothing,” Hastings said. “It’s a misdemeanor I’ll stretch into a felony. Or not. I haven’t decided. I’m tired. Maybe I need to sleep too.” Hastings sighed. “I spent the last few hours on the telephone with Chicago police. They told me who you are, what you do.”
“I own a bar. We serve food as well.”
Hastings went on as if he hadn’t heard him. “Three people in Chicago killed in the last few days, three cops killed here. Nice little balance. Two of them killed in your place. One of them the brother of Jimmy Rizza.”
Regan shrugged. “I wasn’t there. Ask anyone.”
“I don’t need to ask; I know. Anyway, what you did in Chicago is Chicago’s business. What you did here is mine.”
“I got shot here. You want me to register a complaint with you?”
“You’re an assassin. Killer for the mob. They say you’re the man they call to take care of snitches.”
“Do they.”
“And that’s what I think you were here for. To take care of Jimmy Rizza and Michael Dillon.”
“Well, it didn’t happen, did it?”
“No, things don’t turn out like you plan,” Hastings said. “But I would like to know who sent you here.”
Regan smiled, said nothing.
“Who put the hit out on Dillon and Rizza?”
“Hit? What do you—I got hit.”
“Who was protecting Dillon?”
“I can’t help you,” Regan said. “You got charges to file, file ’em.”
“Was Dillon a snitch?”
Regan shrugged again. He said, “Clean your own house.”
“I’m trying,” Hastings said.
After a moment, Regan said, “Sean would have known.”
Hastings looked at Regan. Regan picked up the remote and turned on the television. Sound and light interfering now.
Hastings said, “Sean Rizza?”
Regan nodded.
“But he’s dead.”
Regan kept his eyes on the television. He said, “You’re the detective.” It was all he was going to say.
FORTY-FOUR
Rhodes was waiting for him in the coffee shop of the hospital lobby. Hastings acknowledged him and said he needed to get some coffee. He was hungry too; a tired hungry, but the prepackaged “big donut” looked too big and sugary at this hour. He wondered if they had a toaster and some plain white bread in the back, because a couple of slices of lightly buttered toast would work just fine. But he realized that it would be silly to ask. He took his coffee and sat at the small beige table with Rhodes.
Rhodes said, “Well?”
Hastings said, “He’s a lifer.”
“What do you mean?”
“A professional criminal. Probably most of his life. Chicago PD said he was clever. Never spent any time in prison. Never ratted on anyone in the mob to stay out of prison.”
“So?”
“So he didn’t manage that by telling cops what they want to know. He’s not going to tell us that, yes, he was sent here by the mob to whack Mike Dillon.” Hastings sighed. “He knows we know already. So why give us anything?”
“But you took care of Dillon for him.”
“So what?”
“So,” Rhodes said, “maybe he’s grateful.”
“His is not a grateful lifestyle. Still,” Hastings said, “he did say we should check out Sean Rizza.”
“Sean Rizza?” Rhodes said, “Wasn’t he one of the guys that was killed in Regan’s bar?”
“Yeah,” Hastings said, “it is funny.”
A couple of nurses in scrubs took a table nearby. The one in pink scrubs told the other not to get her started because she was having the worst day. The other said, okay, and let her explain things.
Rhodes said, “George?”
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t you go home?”
“Why?”
“May I say this with all respect?”
“Go ahead.”
“What difference does it make?” Rhodes said. “What difference does it make who sent Regan here? We got Dillon and Rizza. Those are our guys. Let Chicago handle Jack Regan.”
Hastings rubbed his eyes. “It isn’t about Regan,” he said.
“What?”
“It isn’t about Regan.”
“Then what is it? You want to pull Dillon out of the morgue, get him to confess?”
“I tell you, I would if I could.”
“But to what? If you’re wondering about Cain, it’s about as solid a case as you’re going to get. Didn’t he say to you, ‘Which one was he?’ Or something similar? And the woman, didn’t she tell you that he killed Hummel? And Murph’s statement: he was there. He saw Dillon. You read it yourself.”
“I know.”
“Then what? What, George?”
Hastings was looking at the large bagel with cream cheese sitting on the nurse’s table. Big enough for two to eat.
Hastings said, “You’re right.”
“Lieutenant, it’s your call. But you’ve been up all night. And I think you should sleep. At least for a couple of hours.”
“Howard,” Hastings said, “you’re making sense.”
A couple of hours sounded good. So he set the alarm for two hours and did some rounding up and it went off at 11:45 A.M. The radio was set on KMOX and he heard jumbles of conversation forming into Rush Limbaugh, talking about the hypocrisy of some other guy who had a talk show on television. Hastings turned the radio off. He sat up in bed and put his feet on the floor.
And then he said, “Clean my own house?”
He was driving on I-64 when he got Rhodes on the phone.
“Howard? It’s George.”
“You get some sleep?”
“Yeah. Did a world of good. Listen, in the hospital, Regan said something that I didn’t give much thought to until now. He said, ‘Clean your own house.’”
“Yeah?” Rhodes wasn’t following him yet, but he was willing to be patient.
“Well,” Hastings said, “I said some stupid shit like ‘I’m trying,’ but I wasn’t really thinking clearly at the time. I thought he meant, clean it up on your own. But he was talking about something else.”
“Like?”
“Cops. Law enforcement. Clean your own house, don’t worry about mine.”
“But Treats said the same thing. How is this different?”
“It is different. Regan had nothing to do with Hummel. He was after Dillon.”
“Because Dillon was a snitch,” Rhodes said. “We know that now.”
“But we’ve been looking at it backwards, Howard. We’ve been looking at who he snitched on when we should have been looking at who he snitched to.”
“Why?”
“Because Chicago PD told us yesterday that someone tipped off Dillon before he could be arrested, but they don’t know who. And what Regan was telling me this morning was that that someone was in law enforcement.”
“He actually said that?”
“He didn’t say it directly, Howard. But there has to be a connection. There has to be.”
There was a silence. And Hastings wondered if he’d lost his signal.
“Howard?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Who did Regan say we should look into?”
“Sean Rizza.”
Hastings said, “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
FORTY-FIVE
The owner of the restaurant was standing at their table, hand on his hip, laughing and joking with them. The men at the table trying a wine the owner had recommended as he talked about a small farm outside of Verona where he had grown up.
Frank was enjoying himself. Holding court with three other agents, all junior to him, looking up the Special Agent in Charge with his well-cut suit and broad shoulders. Sharing wine and war stories. Frank felt good. He had seen it on the news this morning, listened to the story again as he drove to work, and he could not believe his good fortune. Jimmy and Mike dead, both of them killed. He was free now, released from the devil’s pact he had formed with the two of them over the years. Free.
He shared his good humor with the agents from his office, all of them younger than him, all of them willing to flatter him. It was an insincere affection and respect, but one that he accepted as real. The owner placing a hand on Frank’s shoulder as he looked at the other three agents and said, “Watch out for this guy, eh?” the agents smiling and laughing on cue.
The owner left them and returned to the bar.
Frank said, “He’s a character.” Frank liked calling people characters. Sometimes he called them rascals. He liked to drink wine and have dinner and be seen at places like this.
One of the agents said, “Frank, you’re going to die of boredom after you retire.”
“Golf,” Frank said. “I plan to watch a lot of it.”
Another agent said, “That or run for congress.”
“Not enough money in that,” a third agent said.
“Hey,” Frank said, “I don’t need much. I’m civil service.”
The laughter ebbed as one of the agents became aware of another man’s presence. Standing at the table now as the agents stopped talking and looked.
The Betrayers Page 20