Tillman wanted to interrupt, wanted to say that couldn’t have been true, but Abe saw her doubt and simply talked faster.
“Penny didn’t know what the hell was going on and ran back to the house. Walter was still there, but the boss had died. At that point, there wasn’t much reason to stick around, so Walter and Penny made to leave. Moment they walked out the house, the cop from the cruiser was coming towards them. Penny said he screamed at the guy, told him he was too late to save their friend. Told that cop he had let the guy die. Penny said the cop didn’t say anything back. Just went inside the house all quiet while Walter and Penny ran off together. Only other person Penny ever told what happened with that cop in the car was Walter, seeing as how Walter was there at the end and all. Doubt Walter would have told anyone either. They didn’t need any more targets on their backs.”
“That doesn’t explain how you knew the gunman would have Penny if he had Walter.”
“Then you don’t know as much as you might think you do,” Abe said. “Because whoever is doing this, he must have been there that night. And he knows damn well what he is doing. He chose Walter and Penny carefully.”
“But the other runner from that doesn’t have anything to do with the videos. I’ve spoken to him, and he’s safe. Who else could it have been?”
“I don’t know. But that doesn’t surprise me, that the other guy is safe. He probably wasn’t ever in danger. Whoever is doing this, he only wanted Penny and Walter.” He paused. “He must have known what happened that night. Maybe he was there. Or maybe when Penny got drunk and told me all of it, he also told someone else and word spread. Doesn’t really matter either way. What matters is that whoever is doing this knew that the police would let Walter and Penny die.”
“Why?”
“Because of what they knew.”
“That a police officer was on the scene and didn’t intervene soon enough?”
“It wasn’t just any fucking police officer there that night,” Abe said ruefully, his voice laced with the closest thing to pure hatred Tillman had ever heard. “It was fucking Gregory Stetson. Parked right outside that house like he knew what was going to happen before it even happened. And he didn’t do shit until it was over.” Abe paused, clenching his teeth as though holding in something primal. “And if Stetson would have actually tried to save Penny and Walter when those videos started coming out, folks would have had the chance to ask them why the gunman had taken them. And maybe Stetson thought they would have spilled what really happened that night. And I’d be willing to bet Stetson doesn’t want people knowing about that. Not then, and sure as shit not right now.”
Tillman tried to condense this information into something that made sense. Stetson had been on the scene of a Kingfisher attack before anyone had even called the cops—perhaps he had somehow coordinated the attack with the Kingfisher. He had intentionally let the drug boss die. If any of it was true, it would be reason enough for Stetson to have lost his job, not to mention it was morally reprehensible, but still it didn’t make sense. “If Stetson would be worried that Penny or Walter would say what happened that night,” she asked, “then why would the gunman use them for ransom? If Stetson wanted to be rid of them anyway, then why would the gunman barter with them?”
“He wasn’t bartering.” Abe shook his head. “He was proving a point.”
“What point?”
“That the police will do anything to save themselves. Even if it means letting Walter and Penny die.” He spat on the ground, then put his cigarette out in the small pool of saliva. “I’m telling you right now that the gunman never once expected the police to send him whatever the hell thing he was asking for. Maybe he knew someone else would do it for him, maybe not. Either way, the fact that he got what he wanted anyway is fucking bullshit. Walter and Penny died just to prove his point, one that didn’t need much proving, if you ask me.” Abe shrugged, looking down at his feet. He kicked at a chunk of concrete, sent it scattering and spinning. It looked like he started and stopped a dozen thoughts, settling into a somber whisper. “I didn’t know Walter well, but I can tell you Penny didn’t deserve what came to him.” His voice thinned out until it was hardly audible, barely discernible from the din of voices creeping from the street. “And Paulina sure as hell doesn’t either. She didn’t have nothing to do with all of this. You said you were trying to save her.”
“I know.”
“Don’t you forget it.” Abe shook his head. “Whatever else is going on right now, it doesn’t matter much. All that police shit. It doesn’t matter. Because Penny is dead. And no one seems to care.” His voice was rising steadily until he was nearly shouting, his eyes red and glossy. “I’ve watched the news. They call him the hostage. What’s so hard about saying his name? I know they know who he was. They must know his name. Why wouldn’t they just say his name? What’s so hard about saying his name?”
Tillman hadn’t considered why the news reports had devoted so little time to the hostages. But she now had her suspicions.
“That psycho took Penny’s name from him. And his name was damn near all Penny had in this world, aside from Paulina.” His face reddened, fists clenched. “And she’s a good girl. Always looking after Penny whenever Penny couldn’t look after himself, which was too often, if you ask me. She shouldn’t be a part of all this. She didn’t have nothing to do with whatever the hell happened that night way back when. She doesn’t deserve this.”
“I know,” she said, turning around.
“Where are you going?” Abe called after her.
“The Armada,” she said.
23 DECEMBER 1983
IT WAS WELL PAST MIDNIGHT, those intermediary hours of twilight when Detective Gregory Stetson could practically feel the present becoming the past. The same hours Stetson used to patrol Chicago just a few years back as an officer—it felt like an eternity ago, some other life altogether. A sad life that he had risen above and beyond, back when he was just a lonely pair of headlights licking the pavement, dreaming of this life he now lived.
And in this life, in this moment, he was asleep in bed. Mindy was lying next to him with their two-year-old boy, Bobby, cuddled next to her. It was the same each night. Bobby shuffle-footed down the hall, dragging a blanket, and climbed wordlessly into the bed next to his mother. She pulled the sheets to his chin and patted his chest, and the three of them together slept through until morning.
And if he were awake, Stetson might have noticed how Mindy slid closer to Bobby and farther from himself with each dragging chime of the clock. And if he were awake, this might have bothered him.
When the phone rang next to Stetson’s sleeping head, he was immediately awakened. He listened to the ringing, trying to distinguish it from the dreams still swirling in his head. Bobby whined, an almost-cry, and then faded into a sleeping yawn. Mindy kicked, turned over.
Stetson picked the phone up.
“Gregory Stetson,” he whispered.
There was no voice on the other end, just the dry whistle of static.
“Hello?” Stetson asked.
And then breathing. Heavy and jagged. “I need help.”
Stetson recognized the voice at once. The Kingfisher had never called him over the phone, much less at home. This was strictly against the rules Stetson had set. Stetson stood up from the bed and pulled the phone the farthest the wire would allow. He made it almost into the hall. “What the hell?” he asked, his panicked whisper somehow louder than his normal speaking voice. “You can’t call me at home.”
“I need help.”
“Where are you?”
“Pay phone. Meet me at the alley by the precinct parking lot.”
“What’s going on?”
A dial tone whined in his ear and he regarded the sleeping silhouettes of his wife and his son for a brief moment before setting the phone down, grabbing his coat and his keys, and running to the car.
* * *
Stetson sped his freshly leased Buick into the parking
lot at a roaring clip, the tires spinning around each snowy corner. He parked away from the fleet of cruisers near the precinct entrance and walked to the sidewalk. He spun around, looking for any hint of the Kingfisher, or where he might be.
A heavy snow had fallen that night, and here Stetson was wearing recently shined Dockers and his blue-striped pajamas beneath his overcoat.
He made off in a dead sprint down the sidewalk, slipping through the snow like a newborn foal. And then he spotted, nestled between the precinct garage and the neighboring Laundromat, a narrow alley. Barely wide enough for a trash can and barely wide enough for Stetson as he pushed through. Silhouetted against the streetlights of the adjacent street, he saw the Kingfisher. A shadow pressed against the bricks. But as Stetson neared, he immediately saw that the Kingfisher appeared different. Washed in the dark water of a winter’s night, this man of unworldly strength seemed to bend with each wind passing through the narrow alley.
Stetson waited until he was close enough to whisper. “What’s going on? Are you OK?”
The Kingfisher just stood there before him, his powerful shoulders slackened around his neck like a yoke. He turned and looked at the empty street behind him and then turned back to Stetson. “I don’t know,” he said.
“What’s going on?”
The Kingfisher didn’t answer at first. He dragged his feet in the snow beneath him, drawing a circle. “I need help.”
“With what? What happened?”
The Kingfisher took a few steps back and squatted down. He pulled something from the shadows. Stetson stepped closer, but instinct told him what it was before he even saw it. The Kingfisher’s fingers were gripping a man’s afro, pulling back his head. Stetson squinted and made out the man’s face. It was waxy and still. Stetson recognized that stillness.
The Kingfisher stood back up, and Stetson saw that his head was hung between his shoulders, staring down at his feet, which continued tracing a circle in the snow before him.
“Who is this?” Stetson asked, pointing at the dead man in the snow. “What the hell happened? I didn’t give you a name.”
“There’s another.” The Kingfisher pointed behind him at another shadowed lump, another snow-covered body. “I’m sorry.”
“They’re both dead?”
The Kingfisher nodded, not meeting Stetson’s gaze.
“Who are they?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Tell me who they are,” Stetson said, his voice sharp and bounding from the narrow walls like a ricocheting bullet.
“He’s a pimp.” The Kingfisher pointed to the man at his feet and then gestured behind him. “And that one, he’s his driver.”
“A pimp and his driver?”
The Kingfisher nodded again.
Stetson fell against the brick wall with a long, winding laugh. He wanted to prolong this sense of relief for as long as he could. “Jesus Christ, you had me so fucking worried. I’ll call the station and write up a report. Go and make yourself scarce.”
“He didn’t do anything though,” the Kingfisher said, hesitating. “Neither of them did. I just wanted to hurt them. But they didn’t do anything for the hurt. They didn’t do anything, really.”
“Well, he’s a pimp, right? Isn’t that what you said? And that’s his driver? They were breaking the law. Simple as that. We’ll scrounge up some witnesses to identify them. Shouldn’t be too hard. That’s it. Case closed.”
“But I killed them.”
“Did they fight back?”
“Yes.”
“Did either one have a gun?”
“Yes. Both of them.”
“Then what’s the problem? It’s self-defense. Jesus, you really nearly gave me a fucking stroke when you called. I thought, well, I don’t know what I thought, exactly.”
“I didn’t mean to kill them.”
“A pimp and his driver. They’re among the lowest of the goddamn low. These are bad guys, OK? They would have killed you just as quickly if they could have. Know that.”
“I only wanted to hurt them.”
“Well, you sure succeeded in that.” And just as he said it, he realized he shouldn’t have. The Kingfisher shrunk beneath the weight of the words, laying his head against the wall, breathing loudly through his nose. Stetson knew this posture, though he had never seen it from the Kingfisher. It was a posture reserved for criminals when they’d been found out, cornered, nowhere left to turn but within themselves—retreating to their own private prison.
“Hey, relax,” Stetson said. “I’m just kidding. What I’m saying is, you don’t need to worry. This is an easy fix. These were criminals. You found them all by yourself, right? And when you found them, they pulled weapons. And when they did so, you responded appropriately. But these are just details for you and me. The newspaper headline doesn’t care about these details or if they’re alive or dead. They were criminals, bottom line. And you took them off the street. This is what matters.”
The Kingfisher shook his head violently. Whispering beneath his breath.
“What?” Stetson asked. “What’s your problem?”
“No story on this,” the Kingfisher said louder. “I don’t want a story on this.”
“Why the hell not?”
The Kingfisher kept on shaking his head like he was trying to loosen something out of it.
“So you just want me to drag these bodies into the precinct and tell them it’s nothing?” Stetson asked. “Tell them to keep it a little secret or something? It doesn’t work that way. If there are bodies, there will be a story. Especially when they’re your bodies.”
“No story,” the Kingfisher mumbled. His voice was not the booming thunder Stetson had come to know as the Kingfisher. It was simply the voice of a man. A man reduced to something that resembled humanity. “I don’t want a story on this.”
“Why?” He cocked his hands on his hips and stepped forward. “Tell me why.”
“No story.”
“Yeah, you said that already. So just what the hell do you expect me to do with this fucking dead guy? And that other dead guy? Anyone with half a fucking brain is going to know this was you. This has the Kingfisher written all over it.”
“Don’t call me that,” he screamed. Stetson had never before heard the Kingfisher raise his voice. It filled the narrow alley like a bomb burst. Stetson clutched his ears, blocking out the echoes. When his voice ran dry, the Kingfisher stood still, his head tilted to his shoulder. “Don’t ever call me that name.”
“Look, let’s just relax—”
“I didn’t mean to kill them.”
Stetson’s ears still rang. “Yeah,” he said, “I get it.”
“I don’t want this anymore. I wanted to help everyone. The city. I wanted to make things better, but I don’t want this anymore. I wanted to help Chicago. I wanted to make it better. But I didn’t.”
“You have.” It was Stetson’s turn to shout. “What are you even talking about? Think of the filth you’ve gotten off the street. The fucking cop killer who’s eating through a tube now. Drug dealers who would have sold to kids, little kids, who would have killed anyone who stood in their way. Murderers who gunned down the innocent citizens simply trying to go about their days. You put those evil people away. That was you. Only you could have done all of that. I can show you the statistics, if that means anything to you—the crime in Chicago has dropped to an all-time low. The criminals are afraid of you. You haunt their dreams. They’re terrified to even leave their ratholes. How can you possibly say you haven’t helped this city?”
Snow began to drift down, rooftop remnants or fresh-fallen. Either way, it clouded the space between the two men.
“Because I liked it, Greg,” the man whispered. “I liked all of it. I liked hurting them. I liked breaking them. I liked watching them in pain. But that doesn’t mean that they deserved it.” For a moment, he seemed to flicker in the space in which he stood, a rapid movement or simply an illusion of the falling snow. “And i
f I stay, I’m never going to stop. It’s in me. It’s what I am. It’s what I’ve become. I need to stop. I need to stop forever.”
“What are you talking about? What is this forever bullshit?”
“I don’t want it, Greg.” His voice broke, but then galvanized. “I won’t do this anymore. I won’t. I’m done. All of this. I’m done. I can’t keep going. I only hurt her.”
The thought came to Stetson slowly, slowly, until it materialized on his tongue. “This is about that whore, isn’t it?” Stetson sneered, fighting back laughter that arose like bile. “These were her guys?”
The Kingfisher fell silent.
“Don’t tell me you’re still with her.” He paused for a reply he knew wouldn’t come. “Jesus Christ, man. Have some fucking self-respect.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Stetson barked. “What am I doing? You’re the one that killed your whore’s pimp and driver. Why? You get jealous? You get angry? Did you finally realize she was fucking other men? Are you that stupid you didn’t know it was happening? That’s her job, buddy. She fucks other men day in and day out. She’s probably fucking some random john right this second.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m just telling you the truth, since you clearly don’t understand.”
“She was there when it happened, Greg. She saw what I did.”
“It’s not like she’s going to tell anyone, right?”
“You don’t understand,” the Kingfisher shouted. “She knew I couldn’t control it. She knew I couldn’t control myself, and I told her she was wrong. I promised her she was wrong. But I’ve only hurt her by proving her right.” The man’s thundering voice broke into something recognizable, something familiar. “She doesn’t ever want to see me again. She told me. And I believe her. I don’t know why I did it. I don’t know why. I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t. And now she doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
The Reign of the Kingfisher Page 23