“Anything else you can think of?” I said.
He shook his head. “I just hope you find who did this. He was a good kid. I still can’t believe he’s gone. I keep looking at the door, expecting him to walk in any minute. Somebody needs to pay for this.”
22
WEST HUMBOLDT PARK HAS long claimed the inglorious distinction of being one of the most violent neighborhoods in the city. It had become a cultural revolving door, starting with the Scandinavian immigrants in the late 1800s, followed by the Germans, Italians, Russians, and Polish. In the mid-1960s, a huge influx of Puerto Rican immigrants poured into this once pastoral setting just west of the enormous two-hundred-acre park. They never left.
The years and migratory patterns had not been kind to naturalist Alexander von Humboldt’s dream. Poverty, hopelessness, and lawlessness had transformed his vision into yet another urban neighborhood fractured and dominated by several local gangs. The biggest territory belonged to the Latin Warlords, eminently ruled by Chico Vargas, a skinny Puerto Rican who was obsessed with the White Sox and never missed Sunday mass unless there was a home game at what the old-timers still called Comiskey Park. Vargas ruled his empire from the back of the Taco Shack, a small storefront that was part convenience store and part restaurant that served tacos, seafood, and pizza. It was also known to have the largest array of condoms in all Chicago.
Chico had agreed to meet us, but only on his turf. Mechanic and I arrived five minutes before our one o’clock appointment. We were specifically told that Chico had little tolerance for tardiness.
We entered the storefront on Chicago Avenue and were immediately met by a tall, skinny Puerto Rican kid with two large diamond studs in his ears and a gold chain the thickness of a tow truck cable hanging around his neck. His White Sox cap tilted slightly to the side. We followed him down the back aisle to a door that electronically unlocked as we approached. We stepped into a bright foyer, where we were met by two guys the size of sumo wrestlers. They relieved us of our guns, which they deposited in a plastic milk crate; then they did a full pat down and wanded us with a metal detector before nodding us along. We turned the corner of a second short hallway before reaching another guy about the size of the last two put together, give or take a hundred pounds. He patted us down also, then opened the nondescript black metal door. The tall skinny kid led the way.
The entire room was immaculate. It had been transformed into an adult entertainment center. Pinball machines and video game units stood on the far wall, with two Skee-Ball machines adjacent to them. A television monitor the size of a coliseum scoreboard stood against the entire expanse of another wall, with several wired video consoles and a stack of game controllers sitting on a table in front of it. A basketball rim had been set up in one corner and a racing arcade machine in another. Chico Vargas stood in front of a video machine, working the joystick hard. I could tell by the music it was Ms. Pac-Man. He hit a button that froze the screen, then turned to us. His hair was braided tightly in a fancy design, the edges of his beard razor sharp. He was average height, thin build, with a pair of skinny jeans that hung just beneath his waist. He wore a black White Sox jersey with Ozzie Guillén’s number 13 embroidered on the right pocket. The edge of a toothpick stuck out the right corner of his mouth.
“Ashe fuckin’ Cayne,” Chico said with a thick accent that seemed to combine Puerto Rico, LA, and Chicago all in one. “I ain’t got no love lost for a cop, but I respect how you walked away from that cover-up when they shot Marquan in cold blood. Took a lot of balls to do that.” He looked down at his watch and rolled the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “And you’re early. That’s how I like to do business.”
“We were told you could be persnickety when it came to punctuality,” I said.
Chico looked at the skinny kid with the huge diamond earrings, who shrugged.
“They warned me you were a wiseass who liked to use big words,” Chico said.
“Be careful. When I get warmed up, I can put together two in a row and really make your head spin.”
“You’re much taller than I expected,” Chico said.
“I tend to be modest in my bio,” I replied. “Leaves me with some element of surprise for the unsuspecting.”
“And this is the fuckin’ sharpshooter everyone be talkin’ about,” Chico said, nodding respectfully at Mechanic. “Is it true you the one took out the Santiago boys in Pilsen last year? Seven done, only one shot each man.”
I looked at Mechanic. Not a single muscle twitched in his face.
Chico walked over to a big leather chair in the center of the room in front of the monstrous monitor and motioned for us to join him on the nearby sofa. I accepted. Mechanic remained standing.
“So, what this shit about Ice’s nephew?” he asked.
“I was hoping you would tell me,” I said.
“Ain’t nuthin’ to tell. I found out like everybody else. I already talked to Ice and told him we ain’t have nuthin’ to do with it.”
“He believes you,” I said.
“But you don’t?”
“I don’t have a reason not to. I’m just trying to figure out why someone would kill the nephew of one of the city’s biggest gang leaders, dump him in an alley over in Englewood like a
