The Reign of the Kingfisher

by T. J. Martinson

  Marcus nodded, if only to acknowledge that he’d heard him.

  Paul punched in some numbers on the remote. A baseball game. The first inning, seats mostly empty. A tied score of zero. The announcers agreed that the day was a scorcher, called the next pitch a rocket.

  “I’ll tell you this, though,” Paul said, polishing off his glass. “Stetson sure can talk. He may have been a brown-nose cop, a prick detective, and then an asshole boss, but if I were still slumming at the precinct, there’s no one else I’d rather be in charge right about now. Not too many folks could take this bull by the reins and talk the public down from a ledge like that. Because, from what I’ve seen, people are about ready to jump and see what the hell happens when they hit the concrete. They’re talking about protests, these people they interview on the news. They’re saying they want to protest the cops. Can you believe it? Citizens angry at the police at a time like this? And let me tell you why, Marcus. These young kids don’t know who to hate at a time like this, but they know they like the way it feels to hate someone. So they’ll be protesting the goddamned police at a time like this. Just kills me, I swear it does. Because, back in our day, you had the good guys over here and the bad guys—”

  “Stetson didn’t mention the contents of the ME report in the press conference,” Marcus pointed out before suffering through Paul’s philosophy of the twenty-first century for a second time. “Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”

  Paul smiled, as though remembering the stark differences between Marcus and himself that had so consistently flavored their old meetings.

  “And you know why he didn’t mention that report, Marcus? It’s because he didn’t need to,” Paul insisted. “He talked about what actually matters. He would have only stoked the bullshit fire if he’d gotten into all that conspiracy shit. Because it doesn’t matter what he says, people only hear what they want to hear anyway. It’d be a waste of breath. That’s the truth, the way it goes these days. Besides, that ME report doesn’t mean a damned thing. Smoke and mirrors is all it is. There should be only one focus for the police and one focus for the public, and that is finding whatever piece of horseshit crawled out from hell and killed those people. And then burying a bullet in his head. Right here.” He pointed between his scruffy, overgrown eyebrows and smiled gleefully. “Paint his fucking brains on a wall. Then carve out the wall and hang it up next to a Jackson Pollock or whoever at the art museum. I’d pay good money to see that masterpiece.”

  Marcus wasn’t sure how to respond to this particular brand of Wroblewskian macabre, so he withdrew a pen and a fresh legal pad from his leather shoulder bag and wrote the day’s date at the top. Old habits.

  “So I take it you didn’t find anything odd about the ME report?” Marcus asked.

  “Barely looked at it.”

  “But you did look at it?”

  “Sure. For a second. Couldn’t hardly see it. TV’s so goddamned small. Practically a microwave with antennas.”

  “What’d you think of what you saw?”

  “Looked like an ME report.” He shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Really? It said that the identity of the body was ‘inconclusive.’ But the police and Stetson himself have always said that it was a positive identification. Doesn’t that seem—well—out of the ordinary?”

  “If you’re so worried about things out of the ordinary, then let’s talk about those kids who stole confidential information from the police. That seems pretty fucking out of the ordinary, if you ask me.”

  “That’s not what we’re talking about, though.”

  “Hey, is that the same bag you used to have?” Paul asked, pointing at the leather bag at Marcus’s feet.

  “Do you have any idea why Stetson would have kept the ME report confidential all these years?”

  “That wasn’t his decision. It was Gonzalez, back when he was chief. If you want to ask Gonzalez why he did it, you could go visit his grave and shout into the soil, but I’m guessing he won’t answer.”

  “But Stetson could have authorized a declassification, right?”

  “Could have.” Paul took a drink, washed the liquor around in his mouth. “Wouldn’t be a reason to, though.”

  “Why?”

  “Because none of that matters. No one cares anymore about all that. All that Kingfisher stuff. No one cares.”

  “Obviously, someone cares,” Marcus said. “Or else none of this would be happening. I wouldn’t be here.”

  Paul shook his head ruefully. “And here I thought you came to shoot the shit and mooch my scotch. Speaking of which, how about you be a dear and refill our cups.” He glanced at Marcus’s glass and smiled. “Or at least refill mine.”

  Marcus did so. He’d gone easy on his own tumbler after reminding himself that it was not yet midmorning. Paul, however, didn’t seem to mind the early start. With his curtains drawn, the only discernible sign that it was morning were the biscuits and gravy, which had garnered the attention of several enthusiastic flies.

  “Can I ask you for a favor?” Marcus asked again.

  “So long as I can say no.”

  “I’m looking for someone and I think you can help me out. I know you had a number of contacts on the South Side back in the day. Some folks on the street.”

  “You’re going to have to be more specific. There’s a whole lot of types of folks on the South Side.”

  “She was a working girl. Went by the name ‘Miss May’?”

  Paul took a drink and wiped a lingering drop from the glass with a mangled finger. He stared at Marcus. “What do you think you’re doing here?” he asked, his voice dry and searching. Mildly perturbed. “I thought you’d retired. What are you doing with all this? Shouldn’t you be down somewhere in Florida reading your fancy books? I hear Pensacola is nice. Got some friends down there myself. Most of them dead. Maybe all of them.”

  “I’m looking into something. Old business. Tell me what you know about Miss May.”

  “No. Cut the shit and tell me what you’re doing here.”

  “I talked to someone who had an undocumented run-in with the Kingfisher back in ’83. This was in Englewood. He said that this Miss May was there, along with a couple of guys. A pimp and a bodyguard. He beat them up pretty good, the Kingfisher, but didn’t turn the guys over to police. So I was thinking they may be persons of interest, if they’re still around. They may be overlooked, since it wasn’t ever reported. And Miss May herself, if she had any sort of relationship with the Kingfisher, she may know something. That, and she might be in danger. The gunman might be looking for her, or maybe he already has her.”

  “Why don’t you drop a call to Stetson if you’re so worried about all this?” Paul asked, smiling. “Seems like something he should know.”

  Marcus swirled a tongue-drop of scotch in his mouth, buying himself some time to gather a response. “I’d rather do it myself, for the moment. Besides, it may not amount to much. I figured I could save Stetson the hassle.”

  “Is that really what you think you’re doing, Marcus?” Paul stared somberly into his tumbler and then looked up at Marcus, a neutral expression. “Trying to help out Stetson?”

  “Paul, listen—”

  “Because I personally think if you were trying to help the investigation along, you’d have turned this information over to the police. That’s my opinion. That’s what I think. But then again, maybe you’re one of the clueless thousands who distrust the cops for no fucking reason other than the baseless claims of a murdering psychopath.”

  Marcus sensed the shift in atmosphere and set his pen down. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m saying I think you ought to examine your motivations. That’s all.” Paul ran a shaking thumb along the rim of his glass. “What do you think is waiting for you at the end of this road, Marcus? You think you’re going to stumble on something you somehow missed all those years? Is that what this is? Or are you just trying to rewrite history?”

  His
oxygen tank clicked.

  “Because let me tell you something,” he continued, “and I want you to listen real close when I say this to you, OK? You and I, Marcus, we had our time and we retired with grace and there’s nothing left back there for us but dirt and bones. Dirt and bones, Marcus. And if you decide you want to start looking at all of it again, you want to pal around with the past and everything that happened back then, of course it’s going to look different. It always looks different. And don’t expect it to come to you gracefully. Expect a sledgehammer to the head. Too much time has passed for it to look the same.” Paul seemed energized by this last sentence, a sudden spryness in his posture, a liquid gesticulation of his arms. “It’s a whole different world back there. It’s all carnival mirrors. All of it. So my advice to you is this.” He leaned in close until Marcus could smell the whiskey on the man’s breath. “Everything you remember, just keep it the way it is, because that’s the way it ought to be. That’s the way that it was. Don’t bother digging up old bones, Marcus. It isn’t worth it. Save yourself the grief.”

  Paul threw back the dregs of his tumbler and set it down gently on his breakfast tray. A fresh spurt of oxygen puffed into his nose, and he tapped the rim of his glass the way he used to when they’d meet in dingy dives and talk about things they thought they understood. Marcus stood up and poured Paul another drink.

  “I need to do this, Paul,” Marcus said. “I just do.”

  “Is that an answer to a question?”

  “You asked me why I’m doing this. I’m telling you. I need to do it.”

  “For who? A couple dead hostages on television? A street whore you don’t even know? Or is it for yourself? Who is it for, Marcus? You tell me.”

  Paul’s eyes were glassy. He blinked slowly, as though falling asleep.

  “I don’t think I’m asking for much,” Marcus said, feeling frustrated enough that he drank his scotch in a single swig, which he immediately regretted as the burning alcohol reached his empty stomach. He winced, coughed. “I’m just trying to get in touch with Miss May. She might be in danger. I don’t know. But if I can find her, I’ll warn her. I’ll talk to her. Maybe it’ll lead to someone else, or maybe it’ll end right there. Either way.”

  “Can I tell you something?” Paul asked, eyes foggy. “You can consider it free advice, or maybe just a little story. Depends how you want to take it.”

  “Sure.”

  “Back maybe fifteen years ago, I started going to those AA meetings. My son dragged me to them. As you can see,” he said, holding up his glass, “they didn’t stick. But my son, he took to them pretty good. We’d get dinner after the meetings, just him and I. We’d go to that place down near 34th, the Bosnian place that’s not there no more. He’d talk to me like one of those doorstep preachers, the same sort of insistence. All bellow and gas. He’d tell me all about the world as he saw it, and he’d always tell me that we’re powerless. We, as human beings. We’re powerless. He’d say it again and again. Like he was trying to convince himself and myself in the same breath. What happened was, he said it so often I started to believe him. Or maybe just a little. And then when he died a few years after, I believed it a lot.”

  “I didn’t know that he died,” Marcus said. “I’m so sorry, Paul.”

  “What was I telling you before all that? I can’t seem to remember. Old brain is fried like an egg. It’s the goddamn medicine, is what it is. They feed it to us by the spoonful.”

  “You were going to tell me where I could find Miss May.”

  “Miss May,” he repeated, giggled, half-drunk, the onset of a boyish grin threatening to take hold. “I remember her specifically because I liked to call her Miss Ginger. She looked kind of like that gal on Gilligan’s Island. She’d get brought down to the station pretty often. But that was back before all that Kingfisher shit. Word came down that she was a CI, so she stopped getting booked.”

  “A confidential informant? For what?”

  Paul shrugged. “I never saw her doing much informing. Guys down at the station missed her being around. A fiery one, Miss May. Stetson never once brought her by the precinct, that I know.”

  “Stetson? Why would Stetson have brought her by the precinct?”

  “Because she was Stetson’s CI.”

  Marcus sat forward on the edge of his chair, his mind reeling. “Why would Stetson have a prostitute as a CI?”

  “You’d have to ask him, but it makes sense to me. He had enough sense to know that she knew the South Side better than he did. Girl like that, she’d know all the major players.”

  “Was this before the Kingfisher came around, or after?”

  “Don’t recall exactly, but I know what you’re trying to get at and I’m not going to entertain it. Don’t go down that road, Marcus.”

  “Did she ever get picked up after the Kingfisher died? After Stetson’s promotion to chief?”

  Paul’s laugh was followed by a sigh. “I don’t know, Marcus. I don’t recall. You’re asking useless questions right now.”

  “It just seems odd for a prostitute, who may have been involved with the Kingfisher, to receive what amounts to immunity for being a CI. And through Stetson, no less. Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”

  “Yeah, well.” He sighed, pausing for a moment. “A lot of strange things in this world, Marcus. You ought to know that by now.”

  Marcus had been hoping to find an organic way of bringing up the letter from the CPD detectives about Stetson, the same letter that had been cosigned by one Paul Wroblewski. But now it seemed that Paul was anticipating it, maneuvering out from under the question unasked.

  “You know what I remembered recently?” Marcus asked. “Stetson was the first one on scene when the call came through about a body in the Chicago River. The body that turned out to be the Kingfisher. Why would a detective be the first on scene?”

  “Good Christ.” Paul shook his head. “Don’t do this.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Dust and bones, Marcus.” Paul finished his glass, wiped his lip with a knobbed finger. “Don’t go digging up dust and bones.”

  Marcus knew Paul wasn’t going to divulge what he knew about Stetson, if in fact he knew anything at all. But Marcus refused to leave empty-handed. “Where can I find Miss May?”

  Paul sighed, tapped his glass for a refill. Marcus filled it with a sliver of scotch, but Paul stared at him until Marcus poured more.

  “I’m going to tell you this because I’m your friend,” Paul said. “I consider myself your friend even after all this time. Know that.”

  “OK.” Marcus nodded.

  “Last I knew, she lived near Wrigley. But that would have been about fifteen years or so ago. God knows if she’s still down there.”

  “Address?”

  “Do I look like a fucking Rolodex?”

  “What about the street name?”

  Paul thought about it. “No, but I can do you one better, though. I remember her apartment complex. Lindley Apartments, I think they’re called. One of my buddies from the precinct passed through there after his wife kicked him out. But this was years and years ago, Marcus. Miss May’s probably moved to a shit hole like this by now.” He gestured weakly around him. “That or she’s croaked. Street whores don’t exactly live forever, if you get what I’m saying.”

  Marcus ignored the provocation. “Do you happen to know if she ever lived in an apartment down in Englewood before that? This would have been during the Kingfisher years.”

  “No idea,” he said without deliberation.

  Marcus made a few last notes and then packed his notepad into his shoulder bag. Paul watched Marcus with a blank expression.

  “You’re leaving?” Paul asked.

  “I’d love to stay and catch up,” Marcus said, making sure he’d collected all of his things, “but you know how it is.”

  “Sure,” Paul said, lips curled into a genial, albeit forced grin. The oxygen ticked into his nose. “Sure I do. Time being what
it is and all that. Good Christ. It doesn’t ever seem to stop, does it? Just keeps coming and coming. Doesn’t even stop for two old friends to catch up and shoot the shit a little while. Drink some scotch and watch a ballgame.” He paused uncomfortably, as though unsure how to continue or if to continue at all. How to end a moment that never really began? “Best of luck, Marcus. Hope you find whatever ghost you’re chasing.”

  Marcus nodded, smiled. He opened the door to leave. “Eat your breakfast, Paul.”

  “Not if it grows legs and eats me first,” Paul shouted back at him, settling into a laugh as the door closed between them.

  * * *

  Marcus walked back to his car, not even pausing to take in the day-lit faces of the residents gathered around the lawn, a future he couldn’t imagine. Slow laps in an Olympic pool. The clatter of a game of shuffleboard. Sunglasses so large they masked the face. But then again, at any point in his life, he couldn’t have imagined any future he had lived, and so far he had lived them all.

  Back at his car, he took out his cell phone. He tried calling Jeremiah, but got his voicemail. Jeremiah texted him a moment later: At the station. Can’t talk. What’s up?

  Marcus texted him back. His thumb hovered over each tiny letter: Have a lead on Miss May’s location.

  Want me to pass it on to Stetson?

  Marcus didn’t need to think about it. No.

  Didn’t think so. Wish I could help. Things are bad around here. Good luck.

  He called the only other person who would be able to ID Miss May for him.

  One ring.

  “Marcus?” Out of breath, scattered and soft. “Did you see the video from this morning?”

  Marcus ignored the question. “Peter, I’ve got a lead on the woman from the Englewood apartment you brought me to. I might know where she is.”

  “Really? How did you find her?”

  “I’ll explain later. I only know what I’ve heard about her, but you’ve actually seen her. I don’t have an exact address, just an apartment building—Lindley Apartments. I’ll need you to come with me. I need you to help me spot her.”