One detective stood at attention. The other was loose-jointed and kicked at a rock on the pavement. I was on the top step, my back to the front door. They both squinted up at me through the morning glare. So much the better. I thought about Elaine Remington, alone in the apartment, rummaging through my various belongings. So much the worse. Loose-jointed flashed his badge again. In case I had any doubts. I caught a glimpse of the gold but no name.
“Dan Masters. This is my partner, Joe Ringles.”
Ringles gave a bit of a salute. He looked lost without a swagger stick.
“You been waiting for us, huh?” said Masters. “Why exactly is that, I wonder?”
Masters was the older of the two. Gray buzz cut gave way to a shiny forehead and sharp ears set close. His eyebrows were crisscrossed with scars. The rest of his face was a bag of skin with red holes where eyes should have been and a slash that moved when he spoke. Booze and twenty years on the job will do that to you.
“John Gibbons,” I said. “Friend of mine. Found dead last night.”
“You want to tell me how you know that, sir?”
That was Ringles. The younger of the two, his buzz cut was still brown and shaved high on the sides. He had no eyebrows to speak of, and the skin was tight over thin cheekbones. His chin was soft enough to make him a target. I gave him the shoulder. Ringles didn’t like it.
“I asked you a question, sir.”
Ringles stepped forward. He was probably in my space, if I thought about it. I didn’t. I just hit him. It doesn’t take much if you know how. Just three inches to the solar plexus. I don’t think Masters even noticed. Ringles did. He fell backward over a convenient piece of shrubbery. The landing area was just a bit muddy.
“Watch it there,” I said.
Ringles came up out of the mud with his piece out. He even looked stupid enough to use it. Fortunately, Masters came around.
“Park it, Joe.”
Ringles glared at me over the sight. I stood my ground and tried to ignore the hammer in my chest. Slowly he eased back on the trigger and pulled out the cuffs. I turned back to the older cop.
“Am I under arrest?”
Masters looked at a point in space somewhere between Ringles and myself. Then he shook his head. The cuffs went away.
“I’ll drive down,” I said. “If it’s all right with you guys.”
Masters was already heading back to his car. “Town Hall,” he said. “You got an hour.”
I went back into the house. Ringles was left alone, wiping off the back of his pants. I stopped just inside the door and listened. Nothing. I started down the hall.
“Honey, I’m home.”
The back door to my flat was open. Elaine Remington was gone. She had rifled my bedroom drawers but left my value pack of ultra-thin, just-like-nothing-at-all condoms. I was slightly disappointed.
On the mirror, over my dresser, she had scrawled a phone number in lipstick. Just like in the movies. I recognized the number but scribbled it down anyway. Then I filled my pockets with cash. I’d been inside a Chicago cop shop before. It was best to go prepared.
CHAPTER 7
At the corner of Halsted and Addison sits Town Hall, the oldest operating police station in Chicago and looking very much the part. I counted seven cops working the front desk. None of them, women included, checked in under two hundred and fifty pounds. Most of them used Selectric typewriters with multiple layers of white, pink, and green report sheets tacked underneath. Carbon paper and Wite-Out were big items, too. One computer, a Sanyo circa 1982, lurked in a dark and forlorn corner. It was covered in the morning remnants of bear claw and held up a chunk of green plaster leaking off the wall.
“Let’s go.”
Ringles was gone. Masters had replaced him with a larger version of large.
“This is Bubbles,” Masters said and pointed in the general direction of Bubbles’ belt buckle.
“And what do you call the rest of him?”
Masters smiled and jerked his head toward the bowels of the station. Bubbles grabbed my elbow and the rest of me followed.
The room was white walls with a cracked Formica table and plastic molded chairs bolted to the floor. A mirror spanned one side.
“Is the mayor joining us?” I said.
Masters slammed me a shot in the kidneys. I cracked my head on the opposite wall, tasted copper, and turned just in time to catch Bubbles’ size 15Ѕ up the left side of the head. I watched my reflection bounce off the mirror and fall to the floor. Feet shifted to the left and right. I hung my head and moaned, low and soft. A set of feet moved a bit closer. I came off the ground with a right hand. It connected but not enough. Bubbles had his nightstick out, and he was good with it. I heard my knee pop before I felt it and sat down hard. Masters stepped in again.
“Kelly?”
I swung around to focus on the detective. The eyes were still red and hollow. Basically, uninterested.
“I don’t necessarily like Joe Ringles,” Masters said. “But he’s a cop and you’re not. At least not anymore.”
I nodded and tried to get up.
“Fair enough. Now why am I here?”
Masters looked at Bubbles, who shrugged like the fun was over far too soon.
“You know why you’re here,” Masters said.
“I do?”
The detective sighed and picked up a white phone off the white wall. A uniform brought in a file marked HOMICIDE in large black block letters. Like they were proud of it. Then the uniform and Bubbles left. I spit out some blood and told Bubbles I’d catch up with him later.
Masters took one of the three chairs in the room. I took another. The file was between us. Masters read me my rights.
“You want a lawyer?” he said when he was finished.
“Know any good ones?” I replied.
Masters pulled a piece of paper from the file. It was an eight by ten of John Gibbons. He was lying on a piece of concrete walkway. His mouth was open, and he had a hole in his stomach. The detective slid a second piece of paper in front of me. It was a blowup of a fingerprint.
“This is a latent pulled off a shell casing found at the scene.”
Masters put a second print sheet on top of that.
“We ran it through the system and got a partial match.”
I looked up.
“You don’t say.”
“Yeah, computer kicked out your name among the possibles. Private investigator, former cop.”
I stared at the ridges and whorls for what was probably too long. Then I looked up at Masters, who was looking at me but pretending not to.
“Partial, huh? How many points match?”
“Four.”
“When I was on the force, you needed nine to make it stand up and talk for the DA. Has that changed, Detective?”
“Your card was found in his pocket. A partial on the casing. You explain it to me. Starting with how you know so much.”
