by Jim Butcher
Dammit.
I pushed thoughts of the man out of my head before I started crying again. It’s hard enough to pull off an air of authority when you’re five feet tall, without also having red, watery eyes and a running nose.
Dresden was gone. His cheesy jokes and his corny sense of humor were gone. His ability to know the unknowable, to fight the unfightable, and to find the unfindable was gone.
The rest of us were just going to have to carry on as best we could without him.
———
I KNOCKED ON doors and talked to a lot of people, most of them college-age kids attending school in town. I got a whole lot of nothing about Georgia, though I did get tips on some drug sales that had gone down in the parking lot. I’d pass them on to the right people on the force, where they would become more scenery for the endless march of the war on drugs and wouldn’t amount to anything. The tips did prove the point I’d made to Will, though: Neighbors see things. Maybe I just hadn’t talked to the right neighbor yet.
When I hit building three, I felt the change in climate as I went through the door. It was more run-down than the other apartments. Some fresh graffiti marked an interior wall. More of the doors had double dead bolts on them. The carpet was old and stained. The pane of a window had been broken out and replaced with a piece of wood. The whole place screamed that unpleasant sorts were lurking about, making the building’s super reluctant to maintain the halls and foyer, maybe forcing him to continue dealing with problems and damage over and over again.
I couldn’t hear any music.
That’s unusual in buildings like that one, mostly inhabited by students. Kids love their music, however mind-numbing or ear-rending it might be, and you can almost always hear at least a beat thumping somewhere nearby.
Not here, though.
I kept my eyes open, tried to grow a new pair for the back of my head, and started knocking on doors.
“NO,” LIED A small, fragile-looking woman who said her name was Maria, a resident of the third floor. She hadn’t opened the door more than the security chain allowed. “I didn’t hear or see anything.”
I tried to make my smile reassuring. “Ma’am, the way this usually works is that I ask you a question, and then you tell me a lie. If you give me a dishonest answer before I have the chance to ask the question, it offends my sense of propriety.”
Her head shook in quick, jerky spasms as her eyes widened. “N-no. I’m not lying. I don’t know anything.”
Maria tried to shut the door. I got my boot into it first. “You’re lying,” I said, gently. “You’re scared. I get that. I’ve gotten the same treatment from almost everyone in the building.”
She looked away from me, as if seeking an escape route. “I’ll c-call the police.”
“I am the police,” I said. Which was technically true. They hadn’t fired me yet.
“Oh, God,” she said. She shook her head more and more, desperation in the gesture. “I don’t want to be . . . I can’t be seen talking to you. Go away.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Ma’am, please. If you’re in trouble . . .”
I wasn’t sure she’d even heard me. I’d seen women like her often enough to know the look. She was terrified of something, probably a husband or boyfriend or a string of husbands and boyfriends, and maybe a father before that. She was living scared, and she’d been doing it for a long time. Fear had ground away at her, and the only way she’d been able to survive was by capitulating.
Maria was damaged goods. She shook her head, sobbing, and just started pushing at the door. I was about to pull my foot out and go away. You can’t force someone to accept your help.
“Is there some kind of problem here?” asked a booze-roughened voice.
I turned to face a wooly mammoth of a man. He was well over six feet tall and probably weighed three of me, though more of it was mass than muscle. He wore a white undershirt that showed off his belly, and a button-down shirt with the name RAY embroidered on one breast.
He looked at me and at the apartment door and scowled. “Mary, you got some kind of problem?”
Maria had gone still, like a rabbit that suspects a predator is nearby. “No, Ray,” she whispered. “It’s nothing.”
“Sure as hell don’t sound like nothing,” Ray said. He folded his arms. “I’m trying to get the city out here to fix the lights on the street and the fuse box, and you’re making enough noise to fuck up my conversation all the way down the hall.”
“I’m sorry, Ray,” Maria whispered.
Something flickered behind Ray’s eyes, an ugly little light. “Jesus, I give you all that extra time to pay off on the rent, and you treat me like this?”
Maria sounded as though someone were strangling her. “It was an accident. It won’t happen again.”
“We’ll talk,” he said.
Maria flinched as if the words had smeared her with grime.
My hand clenched into a fist.
Well, dammit.
I’d seen Ray’s type before, too—bullies who never managed to outgrow the playground; people who liked having power over others and who controlled them through fear. He was big, and he thought that made him more powerful than everyone else. The worm probably had a record, probably had done some time, probably for something fairly gutless. For guys like Ray, sometimes prison only convinces them what dangerous badasses they are, serving as a confirmation and validation of their status as predators.
Ray looked from Maria to me, with that same ugly light in his eyes.
“You’re the super?” I asked.
He grunted in Martian. Fuck off and die.
It’s an expressive language, Martian.
“What’s it to you?” he asked.
“I’m the curious sort,” I said.
“Fuck off and die,” Ray said, in English, this time. “Get out.” He looked past me to Maria. “Close that goddamn door.”
“I—I’ve been trying,” Maria said. My foot and my heavy black work boot were both still between the door and its frame.
Flat rage hit Ray’s eyes, and it was aimed at Maria. That made up my mind for me. Ray was obviously an abuser and one who took out his frustrations wherever he damn well pleased instead of upon their source. He was going to be unhappy with me, and when he realized he couldn’t take it out on me, Maria would be the recipient of his rage. It more or less obliged me to protect her.
And I wasn’t going to enjoy doing it even one little bit, either. Honest.
“Get your foot out of the door before I tear it off,” Ray growled.
“Suppose I don’t,” I said.
“Last chance,” Ray said, his eyes narrowing to slits. He was breathing faster, now, and I could see sweat beading on his brow. “Get out of here. Now.”
“Or what?” I asked, mildly. “You gonna hit me, Ray?”
Self-control was not one of Ray’s strong suits. He spat out the word “Bitch,” spraying spittle with it as he did. He moved toward me, all three-hundred-and-change pounds of him, his hands balled into fists the size of cantaloupes.
There was something Ray didn’t know about me: I know martial arts.
I’m not a truly advanced student, but I’ve practiced every day since I was seventeen. I started with Aikido, then Wing Chun, then Jujitsu. I’ve studied Kali, Savate, Krav Maga, Tae Kwan Do, Judo, boxing, and Shaolin Kung Fu. It sounds impressive laid out like that, but it really isn’t. Once you get two or three arts down, the next dozen or so come pretty quick. Since they are all addressing the same problem, and because human bodies are human bodies, regardless of which continent you’re on, they share characteristic motions and timing.
Ray swept a fist at me in a looping punch a kiddie-league fighter could have avoided, so I took my foot out of Maria’s door and ducked it. He kept coming forward in a fleshy avalanche, while I went under his arm and took a pair of steps to one side on a diagonal angle. He tried to grab me as I slipped loose, but he wound up losing his balance badly in doing it. I gave him a helpful push
with the first two knuckles of my left fist, right in the kidney.
Ray smashed into the drywall and left dents. I thought about how long it had taken him to build up speed, and I took several steps back. He turned, screaming a vicious oath, and came at me, gathering sluggish momentum like an overloaded tractor trailer. I had to back up another pair of steps to give him enough space to move into a wobbling run.
He didn’t bother with a punch this time. He simply grabbed at me with his huge arms. I timed it carefully, and dropped to the floor at the last instant, sweeping my leg out in an almost-gentle kick that did nothing except prevent his right foot from proceeding forward and to the floor in proper rhythm with his left.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Ray fell pretty hard.
He staggered up to his hands and knees and swiped a paw at me in another grab.
Jesus Christ. Basic self-defense instructors would kill to have a video of this. He was coming at me with every stupid-aggressive move he possibly could, as if working his way through a list.
There were a lot of things I could have done with the gift he’d made me of his hand, but in real conflict, I don’t get fancy. I go with simple, fast, and reliable. I let him grab my wrist, then broke his grip, wrapped him into a wrist lock, and applied pressure.
That kind of hold has very little to do with muscle or mass. That one is all about exploiting the machinery of the human body. It wouldn’t have mattered if Ray was in shape. He could have looked like Schwarzenegger as Conan, and he would have been just as helpless. Human joints are all built to more or less the same specifications, out of similar materials, no matter how much muscle or lard is on top of them. They’re vulnerable, if you know how to use them against your opponent.
I did.
Three hundred plus pounds of body odor, stupid and mean, slammed down onto the worn, dirty carpeting in the hallway, as if dropped from a crane.
While he lay there, stunned, I twisted his wrist straight up and behind him, keeping his arm locked straight with my other hand. From there, I could literally take his arm out of his shoulder socket with about as much effort as it would take to push a grocery cart. And I could make him hurt—a lot, if need be—in order to discourage him from trying any more stupid moves.
Being Ray, he tried stupid again, screaming and thrashing against the lock. I sighed and kept control, and he and his face relived his crushing impact with the carpet. We repeated that several times, until the lesson began to drill its way through to Ray—he wasn’t going anywhere. It would hurt if he tried.
“So I’ve been talking to people in several buildings,” I said in a calm, conversational tone. Ray was puffing like an engine. “I was wondering if you could tell me if you saw anything odd or unusual last night? Probably between two and three in the morning?”
“You’re breaking my fucking arm!” Ray growled—or tried to. It had been watered down with whine.
“No, no, no,” I said. “If I broke your arm, you’d hear a snapping sound. It sounds a lot like a tree branch breaking, actually, though a little more muffled. What you have to worry about is me dislocating your arm at the shoulder and elbow. That’s worse, overall. Just as painful and it takes a hell of a lot more effort to recover.”
“Jesus,” Ray said.
“Are you telling me that Jesus was visiting between two and three last night? I’m dubious, Ray.”
“I didn’t see nothing!” he said a few panting seconds later. “All right? Jesus Christ, I didn’t see nothing!”
“Aha,” I said. “You sound like an honest man.” I used my bracing arm to reach for my coat pocket, then tossed my badge down onto the floor in front of him.
He stared at it for a long second, and then his face went white.
“Here’s what happens,” I said very quietly. “You’re going to resign from your job. You’ll write a very nice letter to your boss, and then you get out of this building. You’re gone by noon tomorrow.”
“You can’t do that,” he said.
“I can do whatever I want,” I said. “Which of us do you think the judge will believe, Ray?”
That isn’t how I approached law enforcement. It isn’t how any good cop does, either. But the criminals are always willing, even eager, to believe the absolute worst about cops. I think it makes them feel better if they can convince themselves that the police are just like them, only with badges and a paycheck.
“You’re going, one way or another. You don’t play ball, I send the city inspector in here to verify all the code violations on this building. Fire extinguishers are missing. The smoke detectors are years old, and most of the ones that aren’t missing entirely are just hanging from their wires. You’ve got mold and fungus issues all over the place. Lights are out. There’s trash piling up outside.” I yawned. “On top of that, there are drug deals going down in your parking lot, Ray. I figure you’re in on that.”
“No,” he said. “No, I’m not!”
“Sure you are. It fits you, doesn’t it? And here you are assaulting an officer.” I shook my head sadly. “So when the building fails inspection, maybe even makes it into the paper, you’ll be fired anyway. And on top of that, I’ll finger you in the drug deals. I’ll press charges for assault. How many strikes do you already have on you, big guy? Can you handle two more?”
“You’re bluffing,” he said.
“Maybe,” I admitted. “On the other hand . . . maybe I just give John Marcone a call and tell him how you’re helping some of his street-level guys run some deals behind his back.”
Invoking the name of Marcone to a Chicago criminal is as significant as invoking the name of a saint to a devout Catholic. He’s the biggest fish in the pond, the head of organized crime in Chicago—and damn good at it. His people fear him, and even cops take him very, very seriously. One day he’d slip up and CPD, the FBI, or maybe the IRS would nail him. Until then, he was the deadliest predator in the jungle.
Ray shuddered.
“Look up, Ray,” I said quietly.
He did, and he saw what I had seen a moment before.
Doors were open all up and down the hallway. People stood in them, men and women, children, parents, the elderly. They all stood there silently and watched a little blond woman handling big mean Ray as if he were an unruly child.
Their eyes were very hard. And there wasn’t any fear in them now.
“Look at them, Ray,” I said.
He did. He shuddered again. Then his body stopped straining, and he sagged down.
“I’ll go,” he said.
“Fucking right you will.” I shoved on his arm, and he screamed with pain—but I hadn’t dislocated it. I only did it to give myself a moment to pick up my badge and step out of grab range, just in case he was too dumb to quit.
He wasn’t. He simply lay there like a beached shark.
“I’ll be checking back here, Ray. Regularly. If I think you’ve harmed any of these people, stolen or broken their property—hell, if I hear that you gave them a dirty look, I am going to find you and shove a bundle of rusty rebar up your ass. I promise.”
I took out one of my business cards, now obsolete, I supposed, and wrote down a phone number. I took the card to Maria and held it out for her. “If you have any trouble, you call this number on the back. You ask for Lieutenant Stallings. Tell him Murphy gave you the number.”
Maria bit her lip. Then she looked at Ray and back to me.
She took the card with a hurried, nervous little motion and scampered back, closing her apartment door. Several locks clicked shut.
I didn’t say anything else. I walked out of the building. I was halfway across the lot, heading back to Will’s place, when I heard quick footsteps coming behind me. I turned with one hand close to my Sig, but relaxed when I recognized Maria.
She stopped in front of me and said, “I s-saw something.”
I nodded and waited.
“There were some odd sounds, late last night. Like . . . like thumps.
&n
bsp; And a little while later, a car rolled in. It pulled up to the building across the lot, and a man got out and left it running, like he wasn’t worried about it being stolen.”
“Did you recognize him?” I asked.
Maria shook her head. “But he was big. Almost as big as Ray, but he . . . You know, he moved better. He was in shape. And he was wearing an expensive suit.”
“What else can you tell me about him?” I asked.
Maria shrugged. “Not . . . not anything, really. I saw him come out again, right away. Then he got into the car and drove away. I didn’t see any plates or anything. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” I said quietly. “Thank you.”
She nodded and turned to scurry back toward her building. Then she stopped and looked back at me. “I don’t know if it matters,” she said, “but the man had one of those army haircuts.”
I stiffened a little. “Do you remember what color hair?”
“Red,” she said. “Like, bright orange-red.” She swallowed. “If it matters.”
It mattered—but I didn’t want to scare her, so I nodded and smiled, then said, “Thank you, Maria. Seriously.”
She tried to smile back and did pretty well. Then she looked around her, as if uncomfortable standing in so much open space, and hurried back to her building.
A big guy in a suit with a bright red crew cut—it was almost word for word the short description in the notes of the file that CPD kept for a man named Hendricks.
Hendricks was a former college football player. He weighed upward of three hundred pounds, none of it excess. He had been under suspicion for several mysterious disappearances, mostly of criminal figures who seemed to have earned his boss’s displeasure. And his boss had, presumably, sent him to Will and Georgia’s building late last night.
But why?
To get an answer, I was going to have to talk to Hendricks’s boss.
I had to go see “Gentleman” John Marcone.
———
THE POLICE KNOW where Marcone can be reached. Finding him doesn’t do diddly to let us nail him. The fact that he has his fingers in so many pies means that not only do we have to work against Marcone and his shadowy empire, but we have our own superiors and politicians breathing down our necks as well. Oh, they never say anything directly, like, “Stop arresting Marcone’s most profitable pimps.” Instead, we get a long speech about racial and socioeconomic profiling. We get screams from political action committees. We get vicious editorial pieces in the newspapers and on TV.