“The key is that we shot the bullet into the rear panel instead of your head. So you could try a little humility.”
The bartender watched our table like he knew something was wrong, but he didn’t reach for the telephone. Not yet.
“What do you want from me?” I said. “You want to scare me? You’ve done it and can go home. You want something else, you’d better talk fast because I’m planning to drink until I can’t hear you anymore.”
I signaled to the bartender and tapped my shot glass.
The guy in camouflage said, “You made a big mess at Southshore. It’s the kind of mess that you can’t clean up. So, you just need to build on top of it as if it isn’t there. You understand?”
“Not in the least,” I said.
He said, “If you want, we can forget about what happened at Southshore. We can start from here.”
Nothing I would like better. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Three good cops are dead, two wounded. Nothing you can do to change that now. Nothing we can do either. So why bother trying? We’ll move on.”
“Three good cops?” I repeated.
“That’s right.”
The bartender brought my drink. He looked me in the eyes-close, like he was waiting for me to signal him to call for help. Instead, I tipped him a couple bucks.
When he went back behind the bar, I asked, “Have you guys got names?”
“Peter Finley,” said the guy in camouflage.
“Farid el Raj,” said the other. “Call me Raj.”
A young couple came through the door into the bar laughing. They walked toward the table next to ours, looked us over, then sat. Peter Finley shook his head like he couldn’t believe their stupidity.
I downed my shot and signaled to the bartender for another.
“So, what now?” I said.
“Now we help each other. You need to talk to one of our friends.”
“Yeah? Who’s that?”
I figured they would say Earl Johnson, the head of their crew, but they named number two, the guy who Bill Gubman said wanted to challenge Johnson. “Bob Monroe. You know who he is?”
“I’ve heard of him,” I said.
The waitress brought my drink. The bartender had given up on me.
I reached for it but Finley put his hand on top of it. “Let’s go,” he said.
He and Raj stood.
I didn’t want to get into a car with these guys. Maybe they wanted information about how much I’d told Detective Chroler and Bill Gubman. Maybe they would do whatever they needed to do to get it and then they would kill me. Why not? Two of their own were already dead, a good cop was dead with them, and two more were wounded. What was one disgraced private detective? No one forgave as easily as they said.
I stood. “Give me a minute,” I said. “I need to use the bathroom.”
SEVEN
A SIGN ON THE back exit said an alarm would ring if I opened the door. I turned the handle. No alarm. The alley outside was dark and dirty, but two taxis were passing as I stepped out to the sidewalk. I flagged the second.
My cell phone rang while it was speeding up the Dan Ryan toward the Kennedy Expressway. Eighteen miles from O’Hare Airport. Twenty minutes at this time of night.
The display said the caller was unknown, which meant the phone probably was disposable-and untraceable. I knew I shouldn’t answer. The voice on the other end wouldn’t be calling to wish me bon voyage.
A clean break, that’s what I needed. I should turn off my phone and drop it in the trash outside the airport.
But there’s no such thing as a clean break. I knew that too.
I answered.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Finley, the guy in camouflage, yelled into the phone.
“Running,” I said. The truth seemed as good as a lie.
That stopped him for only a moment. “First, you can’t run. We’ll find you wherever you go. Second, we know about you. We know about your mother and her little house on Leland. We know about your ex-wife. Pretty lady. We know about your nephew, the one who’s been living with you. Looks like a nice kid.”
He didn’t need to make the threat explicit.
“You still at the Velvet Lounge?” I said.
“Out front.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Make it sooner.”
When I told the cabdriver to turn around and take me back, he shrugged and mumbled, “You must be nuts.”
I didn’t argue.
THE WHITE SUV WAS idling outside of the Velvet Lounge. Raj and Finley stood next to it. Raj patted me down for a weapon, then opened the back passenger door and I climbed in.
Peter Finley climbed into the driver’s seat and Raj got in beside him.
We cruised quietly toward downtown. The SUV smelled like new leather upholstery and men’s sweat. I looked from man to man. They sat silent and calm like we were out for an evening and the excitement wouldn’t start until we reached our destination.
Traffic thickened.
“You guys take a lot of risks,” I said.
They didn’t seem to think that needed an answer.
I said, “Sooner or later a security camera’s going to catch you. Or you’ll run into nightshift at a construction site and they’ll see you. Your friends in the department won’t need to look at mug shots. They’ll recognize you. Seems like a dumb way of working.”
Finley said, “This from a man who falls asleep on a job and then wakes up and shoots a cop.”
I shut up.
The wheels sounded like rushing water on the pavement. The city lights glared through the windows. Finley pulled out a cell phone, punched some numbers, mumbled into the phone, and hung up.
At the corner of Randolph and Michigan, we pulled onto a driveway that dropped into a parking garage below a building called The Winchester. A banner stretching up the side of the building advertised CONDOMINIUMS, APARTMENTS, OFFICES. LAKE VIEWS. We went down two levels and parked by a service elevator.
“Out,” said Raj.
We stood in the concrete cavern, a man on each side of me. They knew I was willing to run and weren’t taking chances.
The elevator came. Furniture pads lined the walls. We got in. Safe as a padded cell. Someone could get beaten to death in an elevator like this, and who would hear? Raj pushed the button for the twelfth floor.
“You hungry?” Raj said as we rode up.
It was 8:15 and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast in jail. Still, the question-from a man who’d shot a bullet into my car, threatened my ex-wife, mother, and nephew, and abducted me off the street-amazed me. “No,” I said.
“Too bad.”
Bob Monroe’s apartment was more or less what you would expect a cop to live in if he was single, had fifteen or twenty years under his belt, and liked to be close to downtown nightlife. It was a one bedroom, with a living room-dining room combination, carpeted wall to wall with the beige tough-grade stuff that lasts from tenant to tenant. On the outside wall, sliding glass doors gave a city view. If you stood on the little balcony on the other side of the doors you probably could see the lake.
The dining room table was set for four. Two roasted chickens stood on a platter. A large bowl held baked potatoes, wrapped in foil. Another large bowl held salad. A big glass bucket had what looked like a twelve-pack of Heineken on ice.
Bob Monroe came in from the kitchen with a big smile.
“Welcome!” His voice was as big as he was. He was in his early fifties, black, with an almost bald head, the remaining hair shaved short.
He reached out a big hand to shake.
I ignored it, said, “You’re having a dinner party?”
He laughed, though I saw nothing funny. “Just dinner. Thought you might like to join us.”