“Korean named Jae Lee.”
“Marcus popped him, too. Earlier this afternoon.”
Rodriguez drank down half a bottle of Miller and belched. “Fuck.” He pointed his bottle at my feet. “You got some blood following you around.”
I lifted up my shirt and felt a slightly breathtaking wave of pain. Marcus’s single shot had creased my side.
Rodriguez took a look. “Not too bad. Stop at Cook County. Theresa Jackson’s on duty. Tell her you work with me.”
“What will that get me?”
“Some pills so you can sleep and no questions about how you got shot.”
“Thanks.”
Rodriguez nodded. We sat some more in the quiet and drank beer with the dead people.
“What are you doing here, Vince?”
“Rita.”
“She told you I was coming down.”
“Yup. When she gave me the address, I knew it was trouble.”
“You want to tell me, or should I guess?”
“I’ve been undercover for three months. Working these guys.”
“What guys?”
“The Korean was peddling dope to the Fours.”
“Guy named Ray Ray?”
“Ray Sampson. Gang chief for most of the West Side.”
“He was here.” I nodded to the bodies on the floor. “Found a kilo on the Korean. Was looking for a whole lot more.”
Rodriguez pulled on a pair of latex gloves and knelt down beside Lee’s body.
“By the way,” I said, “it was cop dope.”
Rodriguez turned and smiled. “Cute.”
“There was a piece of an evidence sticker left on the key. A little sloppy, Vince.”
“Fuck you.”
“What’s going on?”
Rodriguez stood up, pulled off the gloves, and finished what was left of his beer. “You want another?”
I shook my head. He got me one anyway. “My boss got wind that some cops were skimming product out of the West Side evidence lockup. Recycling it back onto the street.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah. So I put out some feelers. Fed them a little dope and got into the pipeline. Tonight, I dropped twenty-seven kilos of cocaine on some dirty cops. We were going to wrap it all up this week. Cops, Koreans, and the Fours.”
“Sorry.”
“Ain’t your fault.”
“Rita didn’t know you were working the same case?”
“Not the same case.” Rodriguez pointed to the floor. “Just the same Korean. Seems he was running the city scam she was looking at, while at the same time acting as a middleman on the dope.”
“Beats selling lottery tickets for a living.”
“You want to take another look at his face? Anyway, neither of us realized the connection until tonight.”
“Why didn’t you shoot the kid?” I said.
“Marcus? What makes you think I didn’t try?”
“You were ten feet away.”
Rodriguez popped his beer open and took a pull. “You ever shoot a kid?”
I’d killed two people during my time as a cop. Four total. I always thought each of them cut a year off my life. If I ever shot a kid, I thought it might cost me five. When I heard the weight in Rodriguez’s voice, I wondered if I was being too easy.
“It was maybe three years back,” Rodriguez said. “Kid was fourteen. Had stuck a knife in his brother and was holding the blade to the girlfriend’s throat.”
“Drugs?”
“Started over a piece of chicken. Popeyes. Anyway, he cut the girl. She fell to the floor. He went in to finish. I killed him.”
“Did the girl live?”
Rodriguez shook his head and took another pull. “Marcus tell you why he shot Lee?”
“Said he wanted to grab the boxes downstairs before the Fours took them. Figured he could turn a buck.”
“And what happened?”
I shrugged. “According to the kid, someone else showed up. Tall white guy with a rifle. Took a shot at Marcus in the cellar. Kid bugged out through the tunnels.”
“What do you think?” Rodriguez said.
“I think some white guy probably grabbed your bag of dope. And you ain’t likely to see it again.”
“Maybe. But why was he here in the first place?”
“I don’t know.” I stood up.
“Where you going?”
“Downstairs. See what’s in those boxes.”
Vince sat in Ray Ray’s chair while I took a walk through the cellar. It took me five minutes to find it. I took a folding knife out of my pocket, pulled the slug out of a hunk of drywall, and held it up in the grimy light.
“Looks like Marcus might have been telling the truth.” I dropped the slug into a Baggie. Rodriguez slipped it into his pocket.
“What’s a white guy running around this neighborhood for with a rifle?” he said.
“Don’t know.” I bent down and picked through the dirt under the stairs.
“What else you looking for?”
“Anything.” I drew a sharp breath and grabbed for my side.
“Cook County, Kelly. Theresa Jackson. Pills.”
I got up carefully and nodded toward the back of the cellar. “Let’s open those boxes first.”
Rodriguez led the way. I took out my knife again and ran it down the side of one of the boxes. Rodriguez ripped it open the rest of the way.
“What the fuck?” the detective said.
“Exactly.”
“How many are in each?”
“There’s no labels, but the print on the top says HUNDRED COUNT.”
“And how many boxes?”
I peered down the row of pallets. “Maybe a hundred.”
Rodriguez pulled a long white body bag from the box we’d cut open. “What does someone need ten thousand body bags for?”
“Don’t know.”
“You think it has to do with Rita’s story?”
“Doesn’t feel like it. She said the stuff she was tracking was mostly small-time.”
“Well, it’s part of a double homicide now, so she can forget about it.” Rodriguez stuffed the body bag back into its box. “Speaking of which, you need to get out of here.”
“You don’t want me to stick around?”
“You didn’t shoot any of ’em?”
I shook my head.
“Then split.”
“The kid with the dreadlocks was shot twice with my gun.”
