“Losing your dad can be rough, Kel y.”
“Yeah, he was a real fucking prize.”
“I lost mine when I was fourteen.”
I’d known Rodriguez for four years, but didn’t know that. Never thought to ask.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said and looked across the car. The detective’s face was rutted by memory and his voice grew large in the smal space between us.
“He worked the swing shift at U.S. Steel. One night he was coming out of the plant. Had the key in the car door when a squad car hit the corner on two wheels, chasing a kid in a hot box. The kid’s car bounced my dad off the side of a Buick. Cracked his head open.
“By the time I got to the ER, the docs had done what they could, which wasn’t much. He couldn’t talk ’cuz of the tubes, and that was probably just about right. But he took my hand and we sat there, waiting. Didn’t take too long, either. Eyes fil ed up with that look. Fucking head went over. And just that quick, my old man was gone.”
Rodriguez snapped his fingers, a dry sound, and shrugged.
“Who wants to cry at fourteen, right? But, goddamn, if I didn’t sit down on the floor of that hospital and do exactly that. I didn’t know my dad. Never got a good word out of him, or even a kick in the ass. But he was my dad. And I cried. And it was the right thing to do.”
Rodriguez was finished then, and we both listened to the weather. There was a storm boiling over the lake, and the wind was rising around us.
“I’m okay for the job,” I said and hunted for the hint of desperation in my voice.
Rodriguez nodded. “I believe you. But it’s stil gonna come. Sooner or later. Just because it’s your dad. And that’s how that is. Now get the fuck out of here and get some sleep.”
I slipped out of the detective’s car and watched it rol into the night. Then I walked down Eddy to Lakewood. My building was painted in strips of hard streetlight. The hawk was rattling garbage cans in an al ey and banging a wooden sign against the side of a tavern. I bundled myself into a doorway and considered cal ing it a day. I was tired and wanted nothing more than to crawl into an early bed. Lately, however, there’d been no percentage in sleep.
MY CAR WAS parked a half block from Wrigley Field. The Friendly Confines were dark, save for a red neon scrawl atop the main gate, touting regular season tickets, a bargain at a hundred bucks a pop. I turned the car around and drove west. At a stop sign, I pul ed out my cel and punched in a number.
“Mr. Kel y?”
“You ever say hel o, Hubert?”
“Hel o, Mr. Kel y.”
“Cal me Michael.”
“I’d prefer Mr. Kel y, if that’s al right.”
“How you doing?”
“Okay.”
“You stil with the county?”
I had met Hubert Russel at the Cook County Bureau of Land Records. He helped me with some library research on the Chicago fire. Then the twenty-something cyberhacker went virtual to help me catch a kil er.
“Nah, I left there a few months ago.”
“’Cuz of me?”
“Heck, no. I told you. I wanted out of there, so I left.”
“Good. Listen, you got a couple of minutes to talk?”
“Right now?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Have anything to do with al the stuff going down today?”
“How’d you guess?”
There was a pause. “Where do you want to meet?”
“How about Filter over on Milwaukee? Maybe early? Eight a.m.?”
“See you there.”
“And Hubert?”
“Yeah?”
“Bring your laptop.”
“No kidding.”
“And al the toys.”
Hubert Russel laughed. Maybe at me. Maybe not. Then he hung up. I flipped my cel phone shut and steered my car through the night, toward the highway and the sainted Irish of Chicago’s South Side.
CHAPTER 12
Nelson closed the red binder he’d been reading from, stood up, and looked out at a mil ion-dol ar view of Chicago’s skyline. He had found the place by accident-a white ghost of a building on the edge of an orgy of gentrification, the last remnants of the city’s Cabrini-Green housing complex, patiently awaiting Mayor Wilson’s wrecking bal. The high-rise stil had heat, stil had electricity, and was forgotten by everyone, save the rats. It was perfect for their time frame. Nelson just had to make sure Robles was careful. So far, so good. A floorboard creaked, and Nelson turned. His shooter was slouched in the doorway.
“Cable?” Nelson nodded toward the silent TV set up in the corner.
Robles smiled and glided across the room. “Relax, old man. We ain’t paying.” Robles reached down and turned up the volume. CNN was stil carrying wal — to-wal coverage of the shootings. The banner headline read: KILLER ON THE CTA.
“This is so fucking wild.” Robles squatted on the floor and stared at the screen. A picture of a young Latino girl flashed up. The caption pegged her as a sniper victim. The girl was smiling. The talking head said her name was Theresa Pasil as. She was a senior at Whitney Young High School and had just been accepted at Stanford. Now she was dead. Already they were laying out the black and marching through the streets of Pilsen, the city’s largest Latino neighborhood. Nelson turned down the volume on the set.
“Tel me about today,” he said.
“Turn it up and we both can learn about it.”
Nelson turned the set off altogether. They had spoken once by phone after the second shooting, but Robles hadn’t offered up a lot of detail.
“You didn’t tel me about the building manager,” Nelson said.
“What about him?”
“The news said he was found inside the apartment.”
Robles took a sip from a bottle of water. “Dude came in, started sniffing around. I took him with the knife.”
“No anger?”
The smile moved easily across Robles’ face. “Knife went in and the old bastard dropped.”
“What about Kel y?”
“What about him? I already told you. He tracked your footprints down the al ey. I put the gun on him.”
“And?”
“And what? Didn’t seem to bother him much.” Robles pul ed out a long knife and pointed it at a locked door on the other side of the room. “She stil here?”
“She’s here.”
“Can I have her?”
“What did I tel you?”
“You said I could have her.”
“Later.”
Robles drew himself up into a sulk. “I could take her anytime I want.”
