"Drive around the block, like I told you. I'll look for cops," Shadow Love said.
Nothing moving on the street, nobody sitting in parked cars. Shadow Love took a breath. "Okay," he said. "Up behind the warehouse. And then you go on down where I showed you, and wait."
When they finished circling the block, they were on the back side of the warehouse. Shadow Love got out of the car. "Take care," Barbara said. "And be quick."
As she drove away, Shadow Love walked across a vacant lot littered with construction debris to the warehouse. He slipped carefully around the corner and was then directly behind the dumpster. Through a narrow space between the warehouse wall and the dumpster, he saw, for just a second, the dark sleeve of a man's coat on the other side. Hart was wearing a black jacket. Shadow Love touched the pistol under his shirt and stepped around the dumpster.
"Larry," he said. Hart jumped and spun around.
"Jesus," he said, his face stricken. "Shadow."
"It's been a long time," Shadow Love said. "I think I saw you a time or two out on Lake Street, after you graduated."
"Yeah, long time," Hart said. He tried to smile. "Are you still living around here?"
Shadow Love ignored the question. "I heard in the bars that you've been looking for me," he said, stepping closer. Hart was bigger than he was, but Shadow Love knew that Hart would be no contest in a fight. Hart knew it too.
"Yeah, yeah. The cops have. They want to talk to you about your fathers."
"My fathers? The Crows?"
"Yeah. Some people think they might, you know…" Hart bobbed his head uncomfortably.
"… have a connection with these killings?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I don't know about that," Shadow Love said. He was standing on the sides of his feet, the fingers of both his hands in his jeans pockets. "Are you a cop now, Larry?"
"No, no, I still work for the Welfare."
"You're sure talking like a cop, out on the street," Shadow Love said, pressing.
"Well, I know," Hart said. "I don't like it either. I got my clients, but the cops won't leave me alone, you know? They don't have anybody else who knows the people."
"Mmmm." Shadow Love looked down at the toes of his cowboy boots, then up at the sky. It had been slate-gray for a day and a half, but now there was a big blue hole in the clouds right over the river. "Come on, Larry. I want to talk some more. Let's go on down where we can see the river. Nice day."
"It's cold," Hart said. He shivered but walked along. Shadow Love stayed just a few inches behind him, his fingers still in his pockets.
"That's a big old hole, there," Shadow Love said, looking at the sky.
"They call it a sucker hole, pilots do," Hart said, looking up at it. "I took a couple of flying lessons once. That's what they called those things. Sucker holes."
"What do you think, that the Crows are behind all this?" Shadow Love asked.
Hart had to half turn to talk to him, and he lost his footing for a moment and stumbled. Shadow Love caught his elbow and helped him regain his balance. "Thanks," Hart said.
"The Crows?" Shadow Love prompted. They continued ' walking. j "Well, old man Andretti shipped a lot of money out here -that's the money the cops have been spreading around town-and those were the names that came up," Hart said. "The Crows.";
"How about me?"
"Well, the cops know you're their son. They thought maybe you'd know…"
"… where they are? Well, yeah. I do," Shadow Love said.
"You do?"
"Mmm." They got off the blacktopped street and walked along the grassy top of the hill that ran down to the Mississippi. Shadow Love stopped and looked down the river. The black spot floated out in front of his eyes, a funnel of darkness in the day. Fuckin' Hart, probing to find his fathers. "Love the river," he said.
"It's a hell of a river," Hart agreed. A harbor tow was pushing a single empty barge downstream toward the Ford lock and dam. The light from the sucker hole poured down on it, and from the height of the hillside, the boat and barge looked like kids' toys, every detail standing out in high relief.
"Look up there," Shadow Love said. "There's an eagle."
Hart looked up and saw the bird, but he thought maybe it was a hawk. He didn't say so but stood looking at it, aware of Shadow Love beside and slightly behind him. Shadow Love slipped his hand in his pocket and felt the knife. He'd ';• never used it before, never thought of it as a real weapon.
"Breathe it in, Larry, the cold air. God, it feels good on your skin. Breathe it in. See the eagle circling? Look at the hillside over there, Larry. Look at the trees, you can pick them all out… Breathe it in, Larry…"
Hart stood with his back to Shadow Love, his eyes half closed, taking great gulping breaths of the cold air, feeling the tingle on his skin, on the back of his neck. He turned his head up again and said, "You know, I talked…"
He was going to tell Shadow Love that he'd called the Crows from the police station, to tell them about the coming raid. But he couldn't do that. It would sound as though he were trying to ingratiate himself, as if he were crawling. Tears started down his cheeks. The cold, he thought. Just the cold.
He was taking it all in, breathing it, feeling the eagle soar, when Shadow Love put a hand on his shoulder. Hart turned his head, but the other man had stepped behind him.
"What-" Hart began to say, and then he felt the fire in his throat, a stinging, and looked stupidly at the blood on his coat, pouring like a stream onto his hands. Hart sank to his knees in wonder, then fell on his face, rolled a few feet and stopped, the eagle gone forever.
Shadow Love watched his body for a moment, then put the knife back in his jacket and looked around. Nobody.
That's two, he thought. He turned and climbed the embankment, and as he did, the TV tape of the killing of Billy Hood unrolled before his eyes, the woman cop with her pistol, blasting young Billy in the face. Lillian Rothenburg, the TV said.
He crossed the top of the hill, walked down the street, turned the corner and got in the car with Barbara.
"You okay?" Barbara asked fearfully. She looked quickly around. "See anybody around? Where's Hart?"
"Hart's gone," Shadow Love said, slumping in the passenger seat, his eyes half closed. "Saw an eagle. Great big fuckin' bald eagle, floating out over the river."
He looked away from her fear, out the window. In the reflections on the glass, he saw Lily's face, and nodded to it.
Daniel was in a dark mood. He prowled his office, peering at the political photographs that lined his walls.
"I thought we were doing good," Sloan ventured.
"So did I," said Lester. He had his loafers off and his feet hung over the side of his chair. He was wearing white sweat-socks with his blue suit.
"I can't complain," Daniel admitted. He was nose to nose with a black-and-white photo of Eugene McCarthy that dated back to the Children's Crusade of '68. McCarthy looked pleased with himself. Daniel scowled at him and counted the coups.
"One: We took out Bluebird and cleared the only killings on our turf. Two: We got Hood with Lily's help. Three: We broke the names out of Liss and damn near nailed the Crows at their apartment. That's all good."
"But?" Lily asked.
"Something's going to happen," Daniel said, turning back toward the group around his desk. "And it'll happen here. I feel it in my bones."
"Maybe the Crows'11 call it off for a while, cool out," Lucas suggested. "Maybe they'll figure that if they lie low, the heat'll die down, give them a break."
Daniel shook his head. "No. The tempo's wrong," he said. "This has been a planned progression. They kill two people to establish a philosophical basis, then Andretti to grab major headlines, then the judge and the attorney gen-eral, major federal and state law officials. The next act is going to be something big. It won't get smaller."