“Not much good happening over here,” Mechanic said. He had his piece on his lap and the safety off.
We drove past Lowe Avenue, then saw South Wallace up in front of us. It was a one-way street running north, which meant to our left. On the southern side of Seventieth, the park had cut it off so that it couldn’t run any farther south. The elevated train’s embankment ran up along the entire east side of South Wallace and continued south along the border of the small park. I turned left onto South Wallace and killed the engine once we were fifty feet in.
I buzzed the windows down; then Mechanic and I sat silent for several minutes. The noises of the urban jungle rang out around us. A warm wind blew through the car, and we just listened.
“This definitely wouldn’t top the list of places where I want to die,” Mechanic said.
We sat in front of a huge open lot with what looked like an abandoned construction site trailer. The wooden steps leading to the door had collapsed and the windows had been busted with rocks. Several handwritten NO TRESPASSING signs fronted the property, graffiti covering most of the letters. Rusted trucks in various stages of decay had been parked haphazardly, as had several eighteen-wheeler trailers whose cargo bay locks had been cut and doors pried open. A sign on the adjacent lots advertised free property, with a number listed underneath. Nothing moved except for discarded wrappers and empty bags being hustled by the wind. This was the land of the forgotten.
“It didn’t happen here,” I said, surveying the narrow street. All types of trash had collected at the base of the crumbling concrete embankment of the elevated track. Beer cans and whiskey bottles sat next to used condoms and dirty syringes. More vacant lands deeper into the street sat neglected and ominous looking, off the grid, places where bad things happened under the cover of darkness. “But why did they drop it here?” I said aloud. “What was it that made them choose this location?”
“Convenient,” Mechanic said. “Nobody here to see it. Nobody here to give a damn even if they did see it.”
“But did they plan to drop it here the whole time or was it a last-minute decision? They shoot him, maybe they panic, and then they find the closest place for the drop where no one would be looking.”
“Then this was a good decision,” Mechanic said. “We’ve been here for fifteen minutes in the middle of the day, and not a single car has passed. Nothing. Not even a stray dog.”
“That’s because this is a place where people don’t come by accident,” I said. “Anyone who comes here has intentions.”
I looked to where Chopper’s body was found. A plastic shopping bag and tattered diaper had reclaimed the space. The crime scene tape had been taken down, and the chalk outline of his body had been washed away. It was as if he had never been here.
“Understanding the mistakes that were made will be critical to piecing this all together,” I said. “This was the work of one or more amateurs. Why didn’t they get the tag right on the body? They tried to misdirect to the Warlords, but that was a bad target when everyone’s at peace right now.”
I started the car and drove farther into the street and stopped across from a neon-blue ranch house that had lived way past its glory. It just stood there, isolated and pitiful, no windows or doors and a hole in the roof as if it had been hit by a meteorite. From our vantage point we could see clean through to what would have been the back of the house all the way to the empty lots on Lowe Avenue just behind it. Nothing moved except the tree branches in the soft wind.
“At least we know how they entered the street,” I said. “They couldn’t come from Sixty-Ninth, because that means they would’ve had to turn onto South Wallace going the wrong direction. No one trying to dump a body would take the risk of making an illegal turn when other motorists or cops might see you. They must’ve entered from Seventieth Street, drove in about seventy-five feet, and dropped the body. They got back in the car or truck and continued driving north before exiting onto Sixty-Ninth Street. They turned right to go to the expressway or left to get back to Halsted.”
“I can buy that,” Mechanic said.
My car rumbled awake as I turned the key and drove slowly down South Wallace. Once we reached Sixty-Ninth Street, the ground trembled, and the squeal of crushing metal filled the air. We looked up but could see only a silver blur as the train flew by toward safer destinations.
“Jesus Christ!” I said aloud, pressing my head back into my seat. “How could I have missed it?”
“Missed what?”
“The cameras!” I said. “There are cameras all the way down Halsted and down Sixty-Ninth Street. The old Paul Robeson High School is only two blocks away. Anyone who knew this area would know how wired it was with police observation devices. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to take the chance of dropping a body here. All the
