Dornick was angry now. He held his gun on me, and I could see the red triangle of the laser sight in the dark toying with my chest, my head, figuring where best to shoot so as not to hit his lackey.
I went limp in the man’s arms, took a breath-the kind Gabriella always wanted, down, down to my tailbone, shutting my eyes: “Breathe, don’t think. Breathe, don’t think”-and began my mother’s signature aria, “Non mi dir, bell’idol mio” (Say not, my beloved).
Dornick’s gun sounded, and I flinched. I couldn’t help it, ruining Mozart’s fluid line, thinking instead of breathing. He’d missed.
“You goddammed asshole, you-”
The grip on my arms loosened. I broke free. I kicked hard against the kneecap, rolled to the ground, rolled toward Dornick. Elton had seized his legs. Dornick was flailing about, trying to get an angle where he could shoot Elton and not hit himself. He was stronger than the homeless man, but all that meant was that as he thrashed about he dragged Elton with him.
I gave a primitive yell, smashed my hand into his forearm, and seized the gun. A moment later, the embankment was awash in blue.
48
A POLICE LAUNCH HAD ARRIVED, BUT IT TOOK US ALL A few minutes to realize that. Two of Dornick’s banditti tried to run off, but the launch turned its spotlight on the shore. A couple of cops pulled out rifles and ordered the men to stop where they were. Dornick was doubled over on the ground, but he shouted for help:
“Officer down! Officer down!” he cried. “Get that bitch before she escapes. She grabbed my weapon.”
“He’s a liar,” Elton cried in a high-pitched gabble. “Vic, she was here with her girl. They were hiding from this man here. He’s a psycho. We seen plenty like him in Vietnam, rogue soldiers who start shooting their own men. He’da killed Vic if I hadn’t tackled him. And he broke my house in little pieces, just for nothing but to make me feel bad.”
“You look her up,” Dornick said. “She already murdered one cop this week. She’s out for revenge on the whole police force.”
Men in Kevlar vests jumped ashore. They covered all of us with their assault rifles and herded us onto the launch. I was shaking so badly, I almost fell into the river. The cops hoisted me over the side of the launch, and left me under guard while they went back for Dornick’s wounded thug.
Petra was sitting in the stern, wrapped in a gray police blanket. In some dim part of my exhausted mind, I felt relief at knowing she was safe. But mostly I wanted to lie down on the deck and sleep.
Once we were all on board, Dornick had the gall to try to pretend I had held him hostage-him and his three banditti-and forced them to the river, where I proposed shooting them, just as I had shot Larry Alito.
“That’s not true, Mr. Dornick.” Petra called out from the stern. “You know you tried to kill me and Vic. I don’t even know how she escaped, except I guess she’s more resourceful than you.”
That made me smile. The cops wouldn’t let me go over to Petra, so I blew her a kiss.
In the meantime, though, the river police had looked me up and found Bobby’s outstanding warrant on me. They cuffed me, and told me I had the right to remain silent, but as we rode downriver I kept repeating Bobby’s cellphone number and telling them to call Bobby before they booked me and left Dornick free to flee their jurisdiction. Petra’s insistence that it was Dornick who’d been threatening us made them decide to give me at least enough of the benefit of the doubt to call Bobby, who ordered them to bring all of us in.
At the Grand Avenue Landing station, they transferred us from the launch to a paddy wagon. It was one of the old beat-up ones, without springs or shocks. Dornick was beside himself with rage. Him, the head of Mountain Hawk Security, a twenty-year veteran, in the wagon with common criminals.
“I’m not a common criminal, Mr. Dornick,” Petra said. “And neither is Vic. And Elton sure isn’t. So please be quiet.”
Elton was having the toughest time of all of us, being crammed in with so many people. He was sweating, and his teeth chattered. And each time we hit a pothole, he seemed to think it was a grenade, and he’d try to hit the floor but was held to the seat by his handcuffs. “That one was close. Charlie’s closing in. Move your big feet,” he muttered.
“Elton. We’re in Chicago. It’s Vic. You saved my life.” I leaned as close to him as I could in my handcuffs. “Mine and Petra’s. We’ll get your house repaired. Hold on for another hour. We’re going to make it.”
“That’s right, Elton. You’re the best. It’s Petra-your girl Petra-remember?” my cousin chimed in.
Elton stopped mumbling to himself long enough to say, “You’re a good girl, Petra. We’ll get out of here alive, you trust me for that one.”
Dornick said, “Trust you, you drunken rat? Shut up! I’ll deal with you later.”
“George, you’re the rat in this van, and you are finally going to go into that big old rattrap where you belong. You know how much fun they’re going to have with you in Stateville when they learn you’re the man who tortured Johnny Merton’s boys? I do hope your will is up-to-date.”
Dornick lunged across the seat at me, but the cops riding with us held him back.
Petra huddled next to me on the narrow seat. Under her police blanket, she was still wet from the river. I clasped her hands with my own cuffed ones.
“So how did you get all these boys in blue to show up in time to save my life?” I asked.
She’d swum the river, she said, but she hadn’t been able to climb up the slick logs that lined the far bank. “There was some kind of iron ring. I got hold of that and screamed my head off. There’re these town houses up above, and someone heard me and came outside. She’d heard the shots and was feeling pretty nervous.”
The woman who responded to her screams called the police. When a squad car arrived, Petra cried out that muggers were shooting at me across the river. The cops in the squad car summoned the boat.
“Oh, Petra, little cousin, you’ve been scared, but you showed real courage and real resourcefulness. When all this is over, you keep remembering that. Put all those bad faces away in a drawer and put your own courage out in the living room.”
Petra gave a little sigh and curled against me. The cops didn’t try to pull her away.
The night wore on interminably from there. The paddy wagon unloaded us at headquarters. When we’d all been placed in a big interrogation room at Thirty-fifth and Michigan and left to glower at one another for an hour or so, Bobby made an entrance in his shirtsleeves. Terry Finchley followed, in a suit and tie, carrying a briefcase bulging with manila folders.
“Bobby! Good to see you.” Dornick switched on his hail-fellow voice, a hearty baritone. “Congratulations on the promotion. Well deserved.”
Bobby ignored him. And he didn’t look at me, either. When he spoke, it was to the air above our heads. “I’m trying to get Harvey Krumas down here. Peter Warshawski is on his way over from the Drake. We’ll wait to get started.”
Finchley unloaded his briefcase. We could all read the label on the top folder: HARMONY NEWSOME. At that point, Dornick demanded that he be allowed to call his lawyer.
Bobby, still not looking at him, nodded at Terry, who handed Dornick a cellphone.
When Dornick demanded privacy, Finchley gave his thinnest smile. “You were a cop for a lot of years, Mr. Dornick. You know the drill.”
Dornick’s eyes glittered with fury. If he managed to walk away from any charges tonight, none of us would be safe in our beds. He called his lawyer. He was short and to the point. Then I took the phone to call Freeman Carter’s cellphone.