The Red Book Page 14

  “I’ll get it,” he says, racing off.

  “No, I can—”

  “It’s okay. I know to look both ways.” He scoots past me, chasing the ball into the street. “Mom, can we go to the park and play catch?”

  Mom? I turn and see Carla, standing on the front porch. I didn’t even hear the door open. She changed out of her work clothes, going with a tank top and shorts, after deciding to miss work today—a sick day, she called it.

  “Hey,” I say, ever the brilliant conversationalist.

  She nods back. I took a personal half day and called ahead, told her I was coming. She didn’t say yes. She didn’t say anything at all. I half expected her not to be here.

  “I had no right to say what I said. I’m sorry.” I want to get that in before Samuel returns with the ball.

  “Can we, Mom? Can we go to the park?”

  “You go. Mr. Harney and I will catch up.” She looks at me. “Let’s take a walk,” she says.

  Chapter 51

  CARLA’S BOY, Samuel, starts jogging down the street. There’s a square block of a park just ahead, complete with a baseball diamond where kids are playing. Carla and I walk in lockstep down the sidewalk.

  “I should’ve fronted it,” Carla says, her arms crossed in front of her. “You should’ve heard it from me. I should’ve figured it would get to you. It probably got to everyone. So much for confidentiality.”

  “Welcome to the CPD,” I say.

  She grunts a laugh. “So what did you hear? His side, probably.”

  “Probably.”

  “Let me take a guess,” she says. “Ron and I were doing the nasty for a long time, just having a grand old time, his place, my place, hotels, the back seat of a squad car, wherever we could. Couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Then he breaks it off. I’m crushed, just absolutely crushed not to have the honor and privilege of screwing that lumpy piece of shit. But he won’t take me back. So I’m hurt, and I retaliate. I’m a ‘woman scorned.’ I make up some BS story about him sexually harassing me. And the department? Well, these days, they can’t have that kind of pub. Doesn’t matter if it’s true. Doesn’t matter if I’m some ‘irrational woman.’ So they give me whatever I want, as long as I’ll keep quiet. They early-retire Franco, and I get a big promotion.” She looks at me. “How’m I doing so far?”

  “That’s more or less it,” I say. “How much of that is true?”

  “The part about me keeping quiet.”

  Samuel, up ahead, joins a pickup game of baseball. Couldn’t be a better day for it. We stand to the side, watching like parents at a Little League game.

  “I never touched Ron,” she says to me. “Except when I was pushing him off me. He came at me ten different ways. Always trying to get me to work late or take some special assignment involving only him. Always brushing up against me and making comments. Calling me at home. All that I could handle. You just have to take some of that or you’ll spend all your time complaining.”

  Sounds like something my sister would say.

  “Anyway, he started getting more forceful. Started talking about lieutenant exams coming up, he could help, but he needed to know I was a ‘team player.’ You get the idea. What am I supposed to do, spit in his face? Knee him in the balls? He’s my boss. I just tried to discourage him without telling him to go jump in a lake.”

  “Understood.”

  “So one time, we’re in his office late—he kept me late. He calls me in, and I can tell right away he’s been hitting the sauce. I can smell it all over him. He tells me it’s time to stop being such a tease, that kind of thing. He’s all over me, more aggressive than he’s ever been before. First time I’ve actually been, like, scared.”

  She sounds scared now, her voice trembling, reliving it.

  “You’ve told me more than enough, Carla. I don’t need—”

  “So suddenly he’s got his hands halfway up my shirt, he’s pressed up against me, and I’m thinking he’s going to do this, right here in his office—he’s going to rape me. So I fought back. I just—I just went crazy.”

  “You kick him in the balls?”

  “No, but he walked with a limp for a week. And he had a pretty good shiner.” She glances at me and actually chuckles. “I should’ve kicked him in the nuts.”

  “I’m sorry. Sorry about all that. And what I said before—”

  “So then I knew that it was every man for himself,” she goes on. “I had to beef him, because he was going to beef me. So yeah, I filed a sex harassment, and that’s when I come to find out how devious he was. He’d been telling people for months that we were sleeping together.” She shakes her head. “So when I beefed him, all his buddies figured they already knew the truth. I was a liar; he was righteous. Nobody believed me. Nobody. I’d lost the game before it even started.”

  On the diamond, Samuel fields a ground ball and throws it to first, throwing it like I told him to. He looks over and chicken-arms his elbow at me. I give him the thumbs-up.

  “Least you got out of there,” I say. “And you got into SOS.” I turn to her. “Only to get partnered with a burnout like me.”

  She laughs, elbows me. “You’re not so bad, Harney. I admit I was worried. I thought they were promoting me and punishing me at the same time. But you seem like a guy that calls it straight. That’s all I care about.”

  We watch the game for a bit, some clouds moving in, providing a brief respite from the sun. Samuel can hit better than he fields, driving a ball between the shortstop and third baseman.

  “As long as we’re all kumbaya here,” I say, “can I ask you another question?”

  She makes a noise like yes.

  “Are you pregnant?”

  “Pregnant?” She draws back, looks at me like I grew a second head. “Why would you think that?” Unconsciously, she looks down at her stomach, as if I was suggesting she had a belly. She doesn’t. She’s thin as a rail. Hard, too, like she trains.

  “I couldn’t help—one day, you spilled…a…”

  She rolls her hand over, like get on with it.

  I blow out air. “You left a pill on your chair. You take a lot of pills. So yeah, I looked at it, and it was a ginger pill. My wife, when she was pregnant, she took ginger for morning sickness, first trimester. I wasn’t snooping,” I insist, seeing the look of horror on her face. “It just fell out. I just looked at it.”

  She puts a hand to her mouth.

  “Okay, maybe I was snooping,” I admit.

  Ashen, looking violated. I wish I hadn’t said anything. But…she’s not pregnant?

  Finally, she shakes her head. “Well, I guess there aren’t going to be any secrets between us, Harney,” she says. “Yes, they’re ginger pills for nausea. But I’m not pregnant, thank you very much.”

  I put up my hands. “Okay, sorry I—sorry I asked. Really.”

  She pinches the bridge of her nose. “The nausea pills are for chemotherapy,” she says. “I have cancer.”

  Chapter 52

  DENNIS PORTER drives on North Broadway, half past six, having called Amy an hour ago to tell her he’d miss dinner again tonight. Used his standard line for why an IAB captain has odd hours: Crooked cops don’t take evenings off. He tries not to think about the irony in that statement.

  Besides, it’s not like the cops who don’t work IAB are on the straight and narrow. If they were, he’d be out of a job. If they can get their taste of the action, why can’t he get his? He’s no more a hypocrite than the rest of ’em.

  He likes this gig, being on top of the perch, where he can see everything, control everything. Especially after last year’s scandal cleared out most of the other brass. Business, for Porter, has never been better.

  “Hey, Gus,” he says to the owner of the diner as he strolls in. Gus, with his shiny bald head and dirty apron, doesn’t know much, other than that Porter helped him out with a problem he was having with his liquor license two years ago, so Gus owes him. I do for you, you do for me. That pretty mu
ch describes Porter’s entire way of doing business.

  All I need from you, he told Gus, is once in a while, I might need your office for a meeting. For reasons you can understand, I have to meet privately, off the job, with my operatives from time to time.

  Gus motions toward the back room, signaling that the other attendee at the meeting has already arrived.

  Porter passes the kitchen, the glorious smells of fried food and sizzling meat, and opens the office door. Officer Joe Bostwick startles, then stands almost at attention. He is young but looks even younger in civilian gear—a cotton shirt, long shorts, and moccasins.

  “At ease,” Porter says with a chuckle. “How we doin’, Joey?”

  “Good, D, good.” But he looks anything but good. Nervous as a mouse cornered by a snake.

  Porter can’t blame him. Bostwick got thrown into the deep end. Oh, he was all up for the occasional skim, diverting some drug proceeds. Victimless stuff. He grew up in a family of cops. He knew the game. But putting down Latham Jackson? That was over and above.

  Damn, was his voice trembling when he called Porter that day from Latham’s apartment and told him about the video Latham had recorded of the K-Town shooting. We gotta put that kid down, Porter had told him. You up for it, kid? I need a yes or no right now. I’m gonna need this one.

  To his credit, Joey had come through and done the right thing. He put two bullets into Latham and managed to sneak out with an armful of electronics from Latham’s bedroom. It looked like a burglary gone bad, just as Porter had told him to set it up.

  “How are we doing?” Joe asks.

  “All good,” says Porter. “The Eleventh sees it like a garden-variety B and E. Latham surprised the intruder in his bedroom, and the perp blasted him.”

  Joe nods, but he’s lost all color, reliving it. This kid is still wet behind the ears. He’ll learn. “The Eleventh is handling it?” he asks. “Not SOS? Even though it happened across the street from the shooting?”

  “It’s K-Town, boyo. Not like that shit doesn’t happen all the time. And Latham told his mom he was at work that day and didn’t see nothin’, right?”

  Joe nods, finding some relief.

  “Right, so there’s no connection to the shooting. Just a B and E that went to shit. The Eleventh’s looking for a young black kid in the neighborhood. They’re not gonna talk to SOS about it.”

  Porter reaches into the pocket of his jacket, a jacket he didn’t want to wear with these temps today, and produces a fat envelope. “This is for your troubles, Joey. It’s twenty grand.”

  “Jesus.” He takes the envelope and looks at it.

  “Yeah, Jesus.” Porter cups a hand behind the kid’s head. “Because you did good. Because you did something I normally would never, ever ask you to do. You gotta understand that, boyo. This isn’t something that happens every day. Hardly ever, in fact. But you rose to the occasion. So go take that girlfriend of yours, Joann—”

  “Jody.”

  “Take Jody out to a nice place with a white tablecloth. But listen to me now, kid. I want you to understand a couple things. You’re listening to me now.”

  “Yeah, D, I’m listening.” God, this kid is young.

  “First off, you gotta know, this Latham kid was scum. He was a dealer.”

  “He didn’t look like a dealer.”

  “Well, he was.” He wasn’t, of course, but some employee management is in order here. “There are things about this kid Latham you don’t need to know. But trust me, you did the world a favor. Really.”

  Bostwick blows out air. “Yeah?”

  “For real, Joey.”

  “Okay.”

  “Second thing,” says Porter. “You know you can’t deposit this cash in a bank account, right?”

  “Yeah, I know, D.”

  “Use a safe-deposit box if you have to, or hide it somewhere, somewhere good. And no extravagant spending. No big purchases. Use it for everyday stuff.”

  “I got it; I know.” Bostwick’s heard the speech before. It’s not the first envelope he’s received, and it won’t be the last. Bostwick seems to be warming up now, probably mentally spending that fat wad of cash. “I really appreciate this, D.”

  Porter smacks him gently on the cheek. “You can be a good cop and be loyal to me. You can do both. You’re gonna put a lot of skells away. You’re gonna keep the streets safe, and we’re gonna help each other out from time to time on stuff that doesn’t hurt nobody. The best of both worlds, right, Joey? I’m looking at a future captain right here, sure as I’m breathing.”

  That stuff always works on Bostwick.

  Porter leaves first, already late for his next appointment. That’s the one thing that sucks about this gig: the hours. Most of his operatives are inside the various police districts, and he can’t meet with them during regular work shifts. So his nights fill up. He tries to fit everything into a few evenings a week to keep Amy happy, to see Jay and Laura once in a while before they grow up and leave.

  He takes Lake Shore Drive. Traffic is brutal. He’d use the cherry and drive on the shoulder, but calling attention to himself is one thing Dennis Porter never does.

  By the time he’s hit the Stevenson, then popped over to I-90, it’s running close to eight o’clock. It’s half past the hour before he pulls into the alley behind the old bakery.

  The other car is there, headlights on, idling. He gets out of his car, squints into the beams, and gets into the other car, passenger side.

  “You’re late,” Carla Griffin says.

  Chapter 53

  CARLA GRIFFIN, one arm slung over the steering wheel, peering straight ahead, looking drawn and haggard. Not one of her better days. She called in sick today, Porter knows—he makes it a point of tracking her and all the others—but he decides not to tell her he knows that. Don’t tell ’em anything they don’t need to know. That old line: Treat all of ’em like mushrooms; keep them in the dark and feed them shit.

  That’s how he thinks of them, his mushrooms—the cops, dealers, crooks, gangbangers, politicians in his circle. His empire.

  “Harney went back to K-Town this morning,” she says. “Back to the crime scene.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “Not sure.”

  “You weren’t with him? He flew solo?”

  “Right. He says he’s trying to find the identity of the Jane Doe, the dead junkie. Basic follow-up. But yeah, he didn’t seem interested in sharing with me.”

  Something sinks inside Porter. That’s not good. No, that’s not good at all. Why would Billy Harney be trying to ID the prostitute? And not tell his partner?

  “Victim Services can handle basic follow-up,” he says, hearing the edge to his voice, adjusting, not wanting to tell Carla anything more than she needs to know. “That’s not the job of an SOS detective. Did you tell him that?”

  She lets out air, impatient. “It wasn’t exactly a linear conversation, Porter, okay? The hell do you care about the identity of some Jane Doe?”

  Porter doesn’t answer right away, drawing Carla’s notice. The longer the silence hangs, the greater the import of her question.

  “What’s going on?” Carla asks, her eyes widening. “You have skin in this game? The K-Town shooting?”

  “No, of course not,” he says, feeling the seeds of panic rising in him. Shit. He overplayed his hand. “What the hell do I care about gangbangers shooting each other over turf?”

  “Exactly my question,” Carla says, angling her body toward him, confronting him.

  “Listen,” he says. “You know Harney pissed off a lotta people on the force. You know a lotta heads rolled on account of him. Including people I worked with in IAB.”

  “Yeah, I know. So what? You’re looking to burn him? I mean, isn’t that why you got me assigned to him?”

  “To keep tabs on him, yeah.”

  That’s what he told her, at least. The truth? Porter couldn’t give any more of a flaming shit about Harney than he does about any other cop. He on
ly cares about cops if they’re helping him, like Carla here, or if they’re hurting him. And right now, Harney looking into this prostitute, one of Disco’s girls, qualifies big-time as hurting him.

  Disco goes down, Porter goes down.

  “So that’s what I’m doing,” she says. “I told you what he was up to. I don’t see a crime in trying to identify a homicide victim.”

  “But he’s being secretive, sounds like. Like he has a different agenda.”

  Carla allows for that. “Maybe.”

  “I want a full report in two days. I want you stuck to him like glue.”

  “Okay, fine.” Carla looks over at him. “You got something for me?”

  “Not today,” says Porter.

  “C’mon, Porter, don’t—”

  “In two days I will,” he says. “After you give me that full report.”

  Porter leaves Carla, returns to his car, uses his burner phone to call Disco’s burner.

  Not the way Porter normally does business, using cell phones, even untraceable ones. Whispered conversations are preferred. But Disco needs to hear this fast.

  Disco answers quickly, grunting.

  “It’s me,” says Porter. “We have a problem.”

  Chapter 54

  “WHERE ARE we going?” Charlotte asks from the back seat. Or at least that’s the name they gave her. Disco can’t remember her real name anymore. He remembers when she arrived in Chicago, six years ago, from Romania. They had to drag her out of the van, shivering and scared, and shoot her up with tranquilizers just to shut her the fuck up.

  She was, what, eighteen then? She’s getting old now anyway.

  Nicolas, driving, turns off 122nd Street into the old abandoned industrial park.

  “This is a personal visit to a special client,” Disco tells her. “There are apartments here.” He tries to sound calm. He doesn’t feel calm, not after that phone call from Dennis Porter.

  Nicolas drives past the usual spot, pulls up to the rear of one of the interconnected buildings, the one by the old incinerator.