“Yes.”
The chief arched an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“Yes… sir.”
Korigan smiled. “Good. Now, on to the second matter. I can’t help but think you’re overreacting. There are 2.7 million people in Chicago. Seven cases is hardly an epidemic.”
Will opened his mouth again, but the chief cut him off. “You want to do your job. So do I. But this is a public office, not a crusade. I was brought in precisely to keep hotheads like yourself inside the lines. We have rules, we have a budget, and we have a duty to the taxpayers of Chicago to respect both.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Will said through clenched teeth. “How are the taxpayers of Chicago going to react when they find out there’s a drug on the streets turning people into monsters and their police chief is too concerned with keeping accounts in the black to do anything about it?”
By the time he finished, the polite smile had fallen off Korigan’s face, leaving something much colder that Will didn’t like at all. “We are doing something about it,” he said flatly. “Whatever you might think, I have, in fact, read all of your admirably detailed reports, and despite your dramatic conclusions, I stand by my decision. This case will be processed like any other: in accordance with the documented procedure.”
Will’s hands clenched into fists. “But—”
“The resources will be allocated when they’re available,” Korigan went on like he hadn’t spoken. “That’s how procedure works. That how I work. That’s what it means to have a system.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve let you skate by for a long time now, Tannenbaum. You’ve got a fantastic record, and I’ve let you handle things your way so far out of respect for that, but I can’t look the other way forever. You’ve put almost two hundred hours of overtime into this new cartel investigation alone, and for what? You’re no closer to cracking the case now than you were last month.”
“Because I didn’t have the resources,” Will snapped. “If you’d given me more people—”
“You’d have worked them to death, too,” Korigan snapped back. “Police work is work just like everything else. You can throw man hours at it all you like, but sometimes you just have to accept your limits.”
“By which you mean your budget.”
“Partially,” Korigan said with a pitying look. “But has it ever occurred to you that my policies are about more than just the budget? Think about it. We’re cops. We see the worst of this city every damn day. When we start panicking, people notice. The press notices, and that’s a problem for everyone.”
“Who cares about the press? We—”
“You should care about the press,” Korigan said. “You think seven junkies going nuts is bad? Try dealing with a terrified population whipped into a media-induced panic once the papers announce that Chicago’s in the grips of a new, unknown, violent drug epidemic. I don’t care how many people are OD’ing, it’ll be nothing compared to violence we’ll have when people start thinking every bum they see on the street is one bad hit away from going berserk. That’s an emergency, Tannenbaum. That’s what’s going to get people killed—panic, chaos—and that, not the budget, is why your case is officially on the back burner from now on.”
He finished with a low glare that dared the detective to try him, but for once, Will was speechless. That was a much better explanation than he’d expected when he’d stormed up here. Clearly, he’d underestimated the new chief, but that didn’t mean he was done just yet.
“I get that this is the sort of case that would freak people out,” he said calmly, changing tactics. “But I don’t think you understand how bad things are getting. This isn’t your normal vice case of drugs and sleaze. People are getting literally torn to pieces for reasons we can’t explain, and worse, the first two victims were both criminal informants. Our only informants on this new cartel, I might point out.”
“And the other five had nothing to do with us,” the chief reminded him. “Two points don’t make a trend.”
“That’s not how the rest of my guys will see it,” Will said, leaning over the desk. “If word gets out we can’t protect our informants, no one will tell us anything ever again.”
“They’re not telling us anything now,” Korigan said. “We don’t have so much as a parking ticket on this new cartel. We certainly don’t have anything linking them to this new drug.”
“We don’t need a link,” Will argued. “They’re the only pushers left in town. Who else could be selling it?”
That bit of undeniable logic finally seemed to get through, and the chief looked down with a sigh. “You’re sure it’s a new drug?”
Will nodded. “As sure as I can be. I just got back from interviewing a witness, and—”
“Witness?” Korigan’s head jerked up to look at his computer screen. “I thought all the witnesses were dead?”
“Not this one,” Will said proudly. “Both the witness and the perp from the last case tonight pulled through. Better still, the victim is a doctor at Mercy who knows the perp and can testify that he had no previous history of drug use.”
The police chief looked deeply skeptical. “If the perp wasn’t a junkie, what was he doing taking a drug?”
“I don’t know,” Will said. “Like I keep saying, nothing about this case is normal. I don’t know how he got hold of that green slime or why he used it tonight, but you don’t have to be psychic to know there’s something bad coming. I’ll bet you anything you want that the mess we saw tonight is just a warm-up. That’s why you have to make this a priority, before anyone else gets killed.”
That was as good a case as he was ever going to make, but the chief just shook his head again. “I know you want a big case,” he said tiredly, “but let’s be reasonable. Say you’re right, and the new cartel that’s taken over the Chicago drug market is actually pushing some kind of new drug that makes people go nuts. Why would they do that? What kind of business kills off their customers?”
“What kind of business sells pharma-grade street drugs at ditch-weed prices?” Will countered. “These guys haven’t made sense since they came here. Why should they start now?” He put his hands down on the glass desk, leaning forward until he was inches from Korigan’s face. “You want to keep this out of the papers? You want to look good for the mayor who got you this cushy gig? Back off and let us do our damn job. Give this case priority. Give me what I need and I swear I’ll put a stop to this before it gets anyone else killed.”
He was breathing down the chief’s neck by the time he finished, but the man in front of him hadn’t even flinched. He just sat there, staring right back up at Will with the hard eyes of a man who’d seen it all. It was a sharp reminder that despite his fancy office and expensive tux, Victor Korigan was a veteran of some of the world’s worst hellholes, and he was not intimidated now.
“This is not open for debate, Detective,” he said coldly. “While I appreciate the spirit behind your theatrics, my decision is made. The case stays off the priority list. We’ll continue normal investigations as required, but I don’t want to hear a peep out of you about your unfounded conspiracy rumors. From here on out, our official statement is that this whole tragedy was caused by a big drug cartel pushing a bad batch of meth. End of story.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Will warned. “If we don’t act fast, we—”