“Not really, no.”
Another laugh. “Have a seat at the end.”
We sat, me at the end.
Monroe cut up and served the chickens, passed the potatoes and salad. Then, using the carving knife, he cut a large bite of the chicken on his plate and forked it into his mouth. He chewed and asked offhandedly, “So why are you talking with Bill Gubman?”
I looked at my plate. The chicken was steaming, the potato too. Solid food would do me good. I reached for the ice bucket, opened a beer, and drank.
“He’s an old friend,” I said. “From long ago.”
He nodded like he knew it. “It might be time to make new friends.”
I cut a bite of chicken, put it in my mouth. It was hot, the marinated skin crispy. I felt almost grateful. “That’s what he said.”
Monroe smiled. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. He doesn’t like dirt. I’m dirty. His words.”
“Some friend,” Raj said.
Monroe looked thoughtful. “The first twenty-four hours after the Southshore mess, we expected shit to fly. All you had to do was identify us and there’d be a late-night knock at the door and that would be that. I didn’t sleep for expecting it.”
Raj and Finley nodded. They hadn’t been at the Southshore site but they seemed to have gone sleepless too.
Monroe said, “Then twenty-four hours became forty-eight, and we were wondering when everything was going to come down. Then forty-eight became seventy-two, and we started wondering if you’d talked and if you hadn’t why not.” He looked me in the eyes. “No reason you shouldn’t talk. You’re in deep, and talking’s the only way you’re getting out. But we listen around the department and we read the newspaper, and, holy fuck, it looks like you’re not talking.” He leaned toward me. “So, you know what our question is. Why not?”
Because no one asked me to, I thought. They’d left me alone in the cell. Anyway, as Bill Gubman had told me, at least a few people in the department already knew who had been at the Southshore site. “They threw me in jail and I don’t like jail,” I said. “I saw no reason to help.”
“Even if it meant you stayed up to your chin in shit?”
“Even then.”
He sat back. “And what did you say to Gubman today?”
“Before or after he called me dirty?”
“Both.”
“Before, I shook his hand and said I was glad to see him. After, I told him to fuck off.”
Raj and Peter Finley laughed at that. Bob Monroe just nodded.
Then we ate. I wanted to refuse the food, but I didn’t.
The men ragged each other about the women they were dating. They ragged about the evening supervisor on the vice squad. They ragged about the Bears, who’d lost again.
They could have been guys anywhere on a night out, catching up, bullshitting.
Then Monroe leaned back from his plate and said to me, “You know how many gang members there are in Chicago?”
I shook my head no.
“National Youth Gang Survey says almost seventy thousand.”
Raj said, “Like a little island nation. Third world.”
Monroe nodded. “But you know, even third-world island nations have economies. Think of what you could do if you could mobilize seventy thousand.”
I looked at him hard. “What could you do?”
“First of all, there’s forty-two gangs in the city, maybe a couple more. But just four of them are really big-the Black Gangster Disciple Nation, the Maniac Latin Disciples, the Latin Kings, and the Vice Lords. Between the four of them, you’ve got the majority of the gang members-let’s say, between thirty-five and forty thousand. So, what would it look like if we ignored the other thirty-eight gangs and gave the big four some structure and rules?”
Again, I said, “What?”
“It would look like business. Like a well-organized business. Right now, the guys on the street know their own crews but they don’t know the guys in the other crews and they don’t know the guys on top. Same thing from the top down-they don’t know the guys on the street. See what I’m getting at?”
“No. Seems to me that the way things are keeps them safe. The bottom guys can’t inform on the top.”
Monroe shook his head. “They could be safer. They need organization. They need structure. They need protection. That’s where we come in.”
“At what cost to them?”
Like a salesman, he said, “A very low price-a very good deal for what they get in return. Let’s say we can’t reach all the gang members in the city. Let’s say that even by working with the leaders we can reach only a third of them-twenty-five thousand. Let’s say each of those twenty-five thousand brings in just a little bit each day, a buck or two even-say, ten bucks a week. That’s two hundred fifty thousand dollars a week. Or let’s be conservative. Three out of five of the gangbangers we reach forget to show up with their ten bucks. We’re down to a hundred thousand a week.”
Peter Finley said, “You can do a hell of a lot on a hundred thousand a week.”
Monroe nodded. “A hell of a lot.”
I said, “And what do they get in return?”
Monroe said, “They get left alone a lot of the time. We protect anyone whose name is on the list, and we arrest anyone whose isn’t. So we take out the competition. Cheap price for that.”
I took my last bite of chicken and pushed my chair back like Monroe’s. “They’ll never pay.”
“Yes they will, because the price keeps getting higher if they don’t.”
I shook my head. “My guess is, in less than a week, one of the gang members would inform on you.”
Monroe smiled. “It works already on a small scale. The key is to deal only with the leaders. They’ve got as much to lose as anyone and they’re a hell of a lot smarter than you’d think.”
I eyed the remaining piece of chicken, a wing. “What’s this got to do with me?”
Monroe stabbed the wing, lifted it to his plate. “We need a guy who knows his way around the city and can pull a trigger if he needs to. Someone who’s fearless enough to go out and collect money when it’s slow coming in. We figure that a guy who’s willing to shoot a man in a uniform might be good at this kind of work. You interested?”
Fearless? Me? “I want to talk to Earl Johnson.”
His head snapped back at that. “What do you know about Earl?”
“Probably a hell of a lot more than you want me to know,” I said. “Anyway, I know he’s the one who makes the decisions.”
He smiled again, and I hoped I’d made him think that I’d been looking into the group before the night at Southshore. “He’s not here now. I’m making the offer.”
I said, “How much of that hundred thousand a week do I get?”
Monroe laughed. “There’s no hundred thousand. Not yet. That’s what we’re working toward.”
“How much?” I said.
“An equal share of anything you’re involved in.”
I gestured at the cheap furniture. “No offense, but you’re not exactly a poster boy for the riches you imply you’re getting.”
Monroe smiled like he was talking to someone of limited imagination. “I’ve got four years before mandatory retirement. Same thing for some of the other guys, give or take a couple years. Why would I do anything to call attention to myself? You know where I’m going in four years? Arizona-a little town outside Flagstaff. I’ve got the piece of property and I’ve got the architect plans. Slate floors. Redwood beams in all the rooms. Swimming pool. The works.”
It sounded like his version of my little fishing village, but maybe he would have the money to buy the dream. I looked at Finley. I put him around thirty-five, more than twenty-five years away from Monroe’s dream. “You already bankrolling your retirement too?”
He tilted his head and drained the last of a Heineken. “I’m not waiting for mandatory. I’m having fun along the way.”
“Yeah?”
He exchanged glances with Raj.