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  “He was a Hustler,” I say.

  “This is Stanley Wilson,” says Bryant. “He went by Frisk. Yeah, a Hustler, low-level. Lookout, front man, courier, a guy who took orders.”

  “He approached the car?” asks Carla. “This was a drug buy?”

  “Probably,” says Bryant. “No drugs on him, but he had some tens and twenties in his pocket. So he was the screen, the pay window.”

  “Where’s the pickup window?” Carla asks.

  Bryant allows a grim smile. “I’m fairly sure they packed up business for the day. But you know how it works. It was probably around the corner, on the way back to 290. I took the liberty of sending out officers up and down Kilbourn and Van Buren—I assume you approve.”

  “Yeah, sure, Mary, thanks,” I say before Carla can say something about chain of command.

  So that’s the first victim. Three more.

  We carefully step around the Bears jersey and approach. On the right side of the porch—our right, that is—the dark wood is splintered everywhere, pockmarked from bullet holes, with spatters of blood and a deep pool of it on the top step.

  “The man sitting on the porch stairs was Dwayne Sears,” Bryant tells us. “Goes by Shiv. He’s in surgery at Loretto. Multiple GSWs to the chest. No idea what his chances are. He was a lieutenant in the Hustlers. He was the real deal.”

  And he was probably the reason this happened. Whoever did this wasn’t here for the courier by the sidewalk. Shiv must have been the target. And yet he’s the only one who survived, at least so far.

  The third victim, splayed out awkwardly on the walkway to the porch, is a young white woman. Blond hair still up in some kind of fashionable messy bun, her head resting on the top stair, lifeless eyes gazing into the beyond, her mouth open in a small circle. An oversize white T-shirt that falls to her thighs.

  We lean over her. She’s young—late teens, early twenties—and skeletally thin, unnaturally so, suggesting malnourishment. Four bloody gashes where gunfire ripped open her chest. Track marks on her bony arms. Encircling her throat is a necklace dangling a charm that looks like some kind of shepherd dog. A gold-studded watch marked CHANEL on its face, surely a knockoff she bought on the street for a hundredth of the retail price. And above her ankle, a small tattoo of a black flower.

  I stifle the urge to cover her, to shield her, to swat away the buzzing flies.

  “No ID on her,” says Bryant. “Someone thinks, but isn’t sure, she went by Evie.”

  Judging by the direction of the bullet holes battering this porch, I figure the girl was sitting next to Shiv when the shooter drove by. And judging by her position, I expect she hardly had the chance to move before the bullets riddled her body. She was dead before she knew what happened.

  Inside the house, wailing, a woman’s anguished howl.

  Carla and I look at each other. “Ready?” I ask.

  She goes first as we steel ourselves before we see the fourth victim.

  Chapter 8

  WE STEP inside the house: squeaky hardwood floor; mismatched, torn furniture.

  An African American woman, early twenties—the mother, Janiece Moreland—tears streaming down her face, cradling her young daughter in her arms, as if she were a newborn, not a four-year-old girl. The little girl—LaTisha, I’m told—head in her mother’s lap, pigtailed and chubby-cheeked, dressed in a red T-shirt with what appears to be a large squirrel on the front. Her eyes are closed peacefully. Her lips are pursed as if she were blowing a kiss. She would look like nothing more than a cute little girl sleeping in her mother’s lap if not for the dark, mushy wound above her pigtail where the bullet hit. The white wall behind them is spattered with blood and small fragments of little LaTisha’s brain.

  I open my mouth, but words don’t come out.

  “Ms. Moreland,” says Carla, “I’m Detective Griffin, and this is—”

  A garbled cry from the mother, fresh tears. “You’re not taking my baby. Ain’t nobody taking my baby!” She lowers her cheek against her dead daughter’s, that cherubic face.

  I feel it across my chest first, radiating heat, then a thud thud pounding between my ears, sweat bursting from every pore, the images everywhere—

  The memories from four years ago:

  The hospital smells of iodine and bleach. The gentle beeps and whooshes and gurgles from the machines keeping her alive.

  Her tiny hand engulfed in mine. My mumbling whispers: C’mon, you can do it, wake up, honey, please wake up.

  Knowing she’d never wake up.

  Praying to God to bring her back. Begging and pleading and bartering with Him. Take me instead of her. Berating and threatening and shouting at Him. How could you let my three-year-old daughter die?

  An elbow pokes my arm. My daughter’s face dissolves into the past. I turn to Mary Bryant as if jarred awake from a dream, her eyebrows creased in concern, a curt nod of the head, as in Get a grip or You okay?

  I snap out of it, nod, draw a breath. I traveled there and back, but my feet are still planted where they were, next to Carla, who is squatting down, speaking with the mother in hushed tones, the woman struggling to answer amid heaving gasps.

  I wipe my arm across my greasy forehead, useless and shaky, a spectator in my own investigation. I’m joining the conversation late, but I get the gist of the mother’s story, most of which we already knew—she was at work, left LaTisha here with Shiv, her boyfriend. Got the call to come home and hasn’t let go of her daughter since.

  I follow Carla and Mary outside, feeling better with fresh air, no matter how thick and humid. Hoping that my new partner didn’t notice me getting lost in there. She has a low enough opinion of me already.

  “Poor woman,” says Bryant. “No one’s been able to find it in their heart to make her let go of that little kid.”

  I see Detective Soscia and his new partner slip under the yellow tape, heading toward our scene. That’s good. I could use a friendly face on this one.

  “So the only eyewitness is in surgery and might not survive,” I summarize.

  Bryant nods. “Unless one of the neighbors saw something. Anyone taking bets?”

  Her skepticism isn’t far off; there will be plenty of nope-didn’t-see-nuthin’ in our canvass. But there are a lot of people out here who don’t want to live among this violence and who will stick their necks out, even at risk to themselves. We just have to find them.

  “Keep us posted on the canvass,” I say to Mary. “We’re gonna do some of our own.”

  “Will do.” Mary walks carefully down the porch steps.

  I look at Carla, blinking away tears in her eyes. At least I wasn’t the only one affected. “Both girls were collateral damage,” she says, clearing her throat, nodding at the young woman lying on the porch. “And the courier wasn’t the target. It had to be a hit on Shiv.”

  “Looks that way, yeah. Why hit a lieutenant with the K-Street Hustlers?”

  She shrugs, looks out over the street. “We can hope he owed someone money, or he was doinking someone else’s lady.”

  That would make it easier, if this whole thing was personal. Maybe LaTisha’s mommy inside used to go with another guy who wasn’t too pleased when Shiv stole her away. That would be easy.

  But Carla doesn’t think that. Neither do I.

  No, this doesn’t seem personal. This feels like business.

  I tap her on the arm. “You didn’t say ‘turf war.’ I didn’t say ‘turf war.’”

  Because if the gangs are fighting over territory, this would be only the first shot in a long, bloody fight.

  Chapter 9

  THIS ONE is different. We know it immediately.

  There are dozens of shootings a week in the city, headlines every Monday morning—19 SHOT OVER BLOODY WEEKEND—grim faces from our mayor and superintendent. We grunt with despair and mumble that somebody really has to do something before pouring our second cup of coffee. Next weekend’s the same thing.

  No names, no faces. Just a bunch of
black people dead on the West Side.

  But this one’s different. Within an hour the crowd has swelled, filling a city block in each direction. Megaphones and chants: Justice for LaTisha! News trucks by every barricade, news copters buzzing overhead.

  Because this time it was a cute chubby-cheeked little girl. Perfect for television. Somebody has already obtained a photo of little LaTisha wearing a ruffled chiffon dress, pigtails, and a radiant smile, and her image is showing up on cell phones everywhere.

  The murder scene is mobbed. We try to bring order, to find out if anybody saw anything, but it’s like trying to find a dropped penny on a crowded, sweaty dance floor. Our officers work a door-to-door canvass, but nobody’s at home. They’ve all joined the crowd outside, the spectacle.

  Nobody saw nothing. Or everybody saw everything.

  The K-Street Hustlers did it. Those boys by Clark Park. Those folks who drive in from the suburbs for their dope. Someone saw a red sports car. Someone else, a blue SUV. It was three Mexicans. They were African American. It was two white guys. It’s probably the Cannibals that did it, or the Jackson Street Crew, or the Nation, or the Disciples, or some crooked cops, angry they didn’t get their payoff last week.

  One woman yells at me about the burglary at her house two weeks ago, took the cops over an hour to show. An old man tells me we need to put in cul-de-sacs like they do on the South Side to prevent drive-bys.

  Carla is finishing up an interview. I look over just as she slips a hand into her pants pocket. It comes out as a fist that she raises to her mouth, as if she’s coughing, but instead she slips something between her lips before lowering her hand back down to the pocket. She glances around and catches my eye, does a double take, like I caught her doing something. But doing what? What did she slip into her mouth?

  Cough drop? Aspirin? God, don’t tell me Carla’s a pill popper. Is that what Wizniewski meant when he apologized “in advance” for my partner?

  What do we want?

  Justice for LaTisha!

  When do we want it?

  Now!

  My head ringing, made no easier with the sun beating down and several hundred people chanting and shouting while I try to take witness statements.

  Detective Soscia, red and sweaty, grabs my arm. “We got some POD footage!” he shouts into my ear. Police observation devices, he means—closed-circuit cameras, usually mounted on traffic-control devices around the city. “There’s one on Kilpatrick north of here by the park. A better one’s near Kolmar on Van Buren. Just around the corner.”

  Screw it. It could be a lead. We’re not getting anything from this crowd. We’ll be lucky if all their anger and frustration doesn’t turn this thing into a riot.

  “Let’s go check it out!” I shout back.

  “We got no rope on this one, Billy Boy,” Sosh says. “We need this solved by yesterday.”

  Chapter 10

  “YOU GOT informants, work ’em,” I say to the roomful of detectives and uniforms. “You need informants, pick ’em up on whatever you can and flip ’em. Tell ’em the CPD is holding a tag sale, 99 percent off for information leading to an arrest. Route all information through Soscia or Officer Bostwick. And let ’em know about the hotline number, too.

  “Gang Crimes,” I say. “We have a UC in the K-Street Hustlers?”

  Nobody knows. SOS is a new unit, just up and started, not local. But it’s likely the cops in the Eleventh would have an undercover with the gang.

  A guy shouts out, name of Jimenez. “Don’t know about any UCs, but I’ll find out.”

  “Great—do it,” I say. Nobody should have a better idea of who hit the Hustlers than the Hustlers themselves.

  I check my watch. It’s nearly 5:00 p.m.

  “Eight bells, tomorrow morning, we’re back here in this room. Eight and five, every day, until we solve. But we’ll have this wrapped up by tomorrow, right?”

  Yeah, probably not, but it won’t be for lack of trying.

  Lieutenant Wizniewski takes front and center. “This is why you’re here,” he tells the room. “This case is the exact reason we have SOS. They already have a protest rally planned, day after tomorrow, at Daley Plaza. Father Pfleger, Jesse Jackson—even Reverend Al is flying in for it. Let’s have a solve by then, ladies and gentlemen.”

  The crew breaks up. The Wiz levels a stare on me. “Get this solved, Detective.”

  “Will do, Lew.”

  That’s what I keep telling myself. I’ve been gone a long time, after the shooting and recovery and then that fun little murder charge filed against me. I’m rusty. Figured I still had it in me, but you never know. Until you’re back, until you’re in the shit again, you don’t really know.

  I still don’t. The docs swear to me up and down that I don’t have any permanent damage from the shooting. Headaches aside, that seems right. Visibly, at least. Arms and legs work fine, reflexes seem okay. I can still hit a target with my Glock. I don’t slur my words, no droop on one side of my face. But I’m a rebuilt car, and I’ve never seen a wrecked car come back as good as new. This is a hell of a case for my first test run.

  But I won’t show it. I can’t. You show fear, hesitation, uncertainty, you’re nothing on the street or in this house.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket, a new text message:

  Don’t keep me in suspense!

  This from my sister, Patti, also a CPD detective. I promised to let her know when I got my new assignment. I haven’t had a chance to get back to her. She’s been shooting me notes all day. What’s your horsie’s name? Just say no to illegal left turns. Crossing guards are people, too! Real supportive stuff.

  You won’t believe it, I write back. SOS.

  No fn way, she types back.

  Same reaction I had.

  The lead teams—Carla and I, Soscia and his partner, Mateo Rodriguez—head to Mat’s desk, where he’s got the POD footage pulled up.

  “Shiv’s dead,” Mat says. “Didn’t survive the surgery.”

  Great. Another casualty. Another potential lead lost.

  We reach his desk, where he shows us what he found.

  “That’s gotta be it,” Sosh says. “That’s gotta be the car.”

  Sosh and Mat did the initial run through the POD footage. One at Cicero and Van Buren, one on Van Buren near Kilbourn. Closest thing to triangulation we can manage.

  Best bet, the shooters drove east on Van Buren, probably from Cicero, and then took Kilbourn north. That’s how the suburbanites buy their smack, and it wouldn’t draw attention. The Heroin Highway does a brisk business.

  The POD footage is black-and-white, herky-jerky—the camera rotates every three seconds—and grainy. So we can see the vehicles but not their colors. We might get partials on license plates at best. And we usually can’t see the occupants inside the vehicles.

  Still, we have five vehicles in our sights. Sosh thinks it’s the last of the five, captured by the Van Buren POD only four minutes before we received our first 911 call about the shooting. He’s probably right.

  “Pretty sure that’s a Toyota 4Runner,” says Rodriguez. Like me, Detective Mateo Rodriguez comes from a family of cops. Until today I’d never met him or heard of him, but Sosh says the word is Mat comes from good people, and Sosh has sources everywhere. Me, I usually assume the best about people until they give me a reason not to, which usually takes around ten minutes.

  “Let’s run that partial against stolen vehicles and vehicle regs.”

  “Now, why didn’t I thinka that?” Sosh smirks. “Waiting on a call.”

  “And we need to ID the dead girl on the porch. Mat, you got the DNA sample to Forensics?”

  “Done.”

  Sosh answers his cell phone, gets a look on his face. “The 4Runner,” he says. “Reported stolen last night in Melrose Park.”

  “Great.” That’s it. That’s the vehicle.

  “My cousin’s deputy chief out there,” he says. “I’ll go now.”

  Mat reaches for his phone
. “Lemme text my wife.”

  Sosh clasps a hand on Mat’s shoulder. “Detective Rodriguez, take it from me: it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

  “Marital advice from a guy with two divorces,” I say. “You should probably carry around a recorder so you can memorialize all these pearls of wisdom.”

  “I don’t need my wife’s permission,” Mat insists.

  “Sure ya don’t.” Soscia winks at me and grabs his sport jacket. “C’mon, Rodriguez, we’ll get a beef sandwich at Johnnie’s on North Avenue. My treat.”

  “Write that down,” I say. “When the bill comes, he’ll forget he ever said it.”

  They take off, leaving me and Carla. She’s over by her desk, throwing some things together and popping another pill in her mouth, her back turned.

  Jesus, that better be aspirin. Or a vitamin.

  “Feeling okay?” I ask without looking at her.

  “I was gonna ask you the same question,” she says. “When we were inside that house, you were looking a little wobbly.”

  Nice deflection. She’s quick on her feet.

  I shoot a glance her way. “That right?”

  “I mean, I get it, with your past, your daughter and all. Anyone would understand.”

  I throw on my sport jacket. “Detective, we’re on the clock. You got something to say, say it.”

  “I just want to make sure nothing’s gonna slow us down. This is too important.”

  I turn to her. She’s looking right at me.

  “Am I slowing you down so far?” I ask.

  “Hey.” She opens her hands. “I’m just saying. This is the deep end, Harney.”

  “I didn’t forget how to swim, but thanks for your concern.” I snatch my keys off the desk. “C’mon,” I say.