“Don’t worry, I will.”
I pulled the knife out. He couldn’t help but look down at his ruined hand.
“Up here.”
He glanced up. I slashed his left check to the bone. His left eye trembled in its socket.
I slashed the other cheek, taking a flap of skin from the jawline as well. Gilmore was shivering. Still smiling, but now a little shocky.
“Kill me.”
“In due time.”
“I did them all.”
“I know.” I moved forward with the knife. And pretty soon I knew the rest.
CHAPTER 58
“Fruits and vegetables. That’s what it says, Kelly. Fruits and vegetables. Like it’s one category.”
I was sitting at the bottom of the fire escape, watching Johnny Apple peel his namesake with a knife and expand on the reason why.
“Doctor tells me more vegetables. I say, ‘What does that mean?’ He shows me the pyramid. With the categories.”
“Fruits and vegetables?”
“That’s right. I figure one covers for the other. Now, I love apples.” Johnny took a bite and held up the aforementioned fruit. “Good for six or seven a day. Cunt of a wife tells me I’m a dumb fuck. Like I need her to tell me that? Says they need to be green and leafy. Green and leafy? What the fuck is that?”
“Vegetables?”
“Exactly what she told me.”
“It’s not fruits or vegetables, Johnny. So maybe you can’t substitute one for the other.”
“You don’t like the categories?”
I shrugged. Johnny finished his apple. I finished my smoke. Then Vinny DeLuca’s hitter took a look up the stairs.
“He up there?”
“Yeah.”
“Wrapped.”
“Bubble wrap.”
Johnny chuckled. “Bubble wrap. Federal Fucking Expresso. Bet it does a nice job.”
“Where are you going to take him?”
“Better if you don’t know. Don’t worry. He won’t never be heard from.”
I stood up. Johnny put out a hand. It was full of knuckles and rings. “You don’t have to go up.”
“I got a few things I need to grab.”
Johnny shrugged. “You all right?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t look it.”
“Let’s get him out. I’ll feel a lot better.”
We went upstairs. Johnny Apple commented on the fine packing job. Then he threw the bundle over his shoulder, took it downstairs, and dumped it in his trunk. He slammed the lid and offered his hand on a job well done.
“Got something else for you, Johnny.”
The hitter’s face went blank. His hand dropped to his side. In Johnny’s line of work, no one likes surprises.
“It’s in the basement,” I said, and pointed the way. Johnny took out his gun and insisted I go first. The door to the cellar was unlocked. I pushed it open. The black duffel bag with gold trim was right where I’d left it. Johnny Apple tucked his gun into his belt and zipped the bag open.
“It’s the dope Gilmore lifted from the Korean. I counted twenty-six kilos. The Fours already took delivery on number twenty-seven. Pretty much makes your boss whole.”
Johnny zipped up the bag and carried it out to the car, where he locked it in the trunk beside Gilmore. Then he climbed behind the wheel.
“You hear me, Johnny?”
“I heard you. Not sure if my boss is gonna hear you. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I do. And I think I can live with it.”
“We’ll see. Be good, Kelly.”
“Bye, Johnny.”
Johnny Apple drove off the lot and disappeared around a corner. The rain had stopped, and the sky had cleared. I sat on the black iron stairs and had another smoke. Watched the muddy parking lot dry in the early afternoon sun. After a while I went up the stairs and walked through Gilmore’s computer a second time. Then a third. When I had what I needed, I slipped out the back door, found my own car, and left.
LOOSE ENDS
CHAPTER 59
The crisis ended with a press conference. After seventy-two hours with no new infections, the feds linked arms with the mayor and took a collective bow. There was a lot of vague talk about vaccines. Sixty Minutes ran a piece on CDA Labs and the emerging bioterror-industrial complex. The reality, however, was that the pathogen had just expired. Apparently of natural causes. No one seemed to understand why. And, for the moment anyway, no one really cared. Immediately after the press conference, work crews began to dismantle the quarantine fences. And the backlash began.
BioKatrina, the press called it. From the White House to City Hall. A core meltdown at all levels of government. The New York Times ran a piece offering a glimpse inside Chicago’s quarantine zones. Three hundred forty-three dead from the pathogen. Another two hundred from the dogs the pathogen let loose. There were just a few pictures that got through the government net, but the Times had them. A block of buildings reduced to chunks of rock and raw timber. Three bangers on “patrol,” smiling and pointing guns at the camera. A single body, curled in an alley, while residents, faces and mouths covered, picked through the deceased’s effects. This was America, the editorial intoned. This was ourselves.
The piece got a lot of attention for a day or two. Then was forgotten. And why not? There was money to be spent. Money to be made. Talk show hours to fill. Fresh blood in the water.
The finest minds would be enlisted. Billions pledged to the effort. It was the challenge for a generation. Render America a fortress. Impervious to a second biological attack.
I watched it all on TV, sitting among crates of booze in a single room above my local, an Irish bar called the Hidden Shamrock. I kept an eye on who got nervous. Who got their names in headlines. And who didn’t show up at all.
On the day I killed Gilmore, Molly had hit my cell five times. After that, it was mostly no one. Except the mayor’s office. And Rachel. I didn’t answer any of them. Save one.
On the second day, I got my shoulder patched. Then I drove north on Lake Shore Drive until it ended. I snaked along Sheridan, through Rogers Park and into Evanston. The folks at Northwestern were more than helpful. I knew what I wanted and found it exactly where I thought it might be. The registrar’s office was even kind enough to make copies for me.
On the morning of day three, the politicians held their press conference. I arrived at Grant Park just after five
