Start Shooting (19 page)

I don’t speak Sergeant, Chicago OPS, or Vietnam, and ask Buff to explain.

“My friend’s telling me to stop being stupid. Hahn and Lopez aren’t who or what they say; their mission
and ours
isn’t what we think it is; and we better figure Shadowland before we take another half step into the jungle.”

“Kinda what Ruben said. The feds have to be after us for something else, ’cause when Coleen was killed none of us were on the job.”

“I was.” Buff sips the beer. “And two hours ago Dupree’s lawyers noticed me for Monday’s depositions.”

“You? Why?”

“Back in the day I worked with Ruben and the other three coppers who put Dupree in the gas chamber. Lawyers must think I can tell ’em something. Your brother say anything else?”

“Nah. Ruben’s focused on the depositions and the
Herald
. He’s hooking me up with a downtown lawyer, big hitter, who I guess already got an injunction against the
Herald
. They go to court Monday when I’m at IAD and you guys are being deposed.”

“This guy your lawyer or Ruben’s lawyer?”

“What’s the difference?”

“You know the fucking difference.”

I lean back. “He’s my brother, Buff.”

“Yeah, I know. Answer the question.”

Heat rises on my neck. Deep breath. I am real tired of being prodded, questioned, doubted, threatened, and pushed around, friend or
foe. Tired enough that I—Deep breath … another. Buff’s my friend, I know that, and my boss. “Why”—I swallow beer—“do you think I need a different lawyer than my brother?”

Buff says, “Why aren’t you looking at me?”

My eyes cut to his. I want to leave.

Buff says, “That’s why you need a different lawyer.”

I stand; so does Buff. From behind, Jason throws his arm around me. Buff tells him to give us a minute. Jason slaps my back, grabs his gun and yells, “Pole party at Jewboy’s. Then we find the rat who fucked us.”

Buff waits for Jason to turn, then says, “Ruben’s a legend, but he’s a player. Doesn’t make him guilty of shit, but it for sure doesn’t make him innocent, either. He has history, your brother. People talk about him—who he knows, how he operates. I’m a blue-collar guy; people say shit about me, too, but it’s different. And you know it’s different.”

We stare at the polygraph results Buff holds between us. Buff’s telling me something he won’t say.

“Everybody passed, right? That’s what the guy said.”

Buff nods, but his eyes don’t. “Your brother
could
be a federal target for something other than Coleen Brennan. I underline ‘could,’ Bobby. I’m not saying he is. I’m saying
maybe
he is.”

Target
doesn’t mean
guilty
.

“He’s my brother, Buff, my only brother.”

Buff starts to say something but stops, then: “Robbie Steffen and your brother are friends. Ruben was in his wedding. The dead gangsters in our alley
with Robbie
were Korean mafia from up on Lawrence Avenue—rose tats on the arms, evil sons a bitches, I promise you. I knew some in Saigon.”

“I still don’t see—”

“Robbie was off duty and wearing a vest.”

Buff lets me think about that, then adds:

“IAD don’t convict Robbie on a vest, but I do. Then there’s you. Interesting how fast Danny Vacco put you together. After the ten years you been jerking with him, all of a sudden Danny V picks a fight to the death?” Buff shrugs. “Could be all your shit lined up so perfect Danny took a flyer.” Pause. “But I doubt it. I see shadows, Bobby. Don’t know that they belong to your brother or Robbie, but I see shadows.”

“Ruben’s my brother. He’d take a bullet for me.”

Buff nods, but not with conviction. “Your lawyer won’t. Bobby Vargas don’t mean shit to him.”

I turn to leave. Buff stops me.

“No Danny Vacco. The rest is up to you. But as your friend”—he points the rolled-up polygraph results in my face—“I advise you to at least get a different attorney for the Child Services charge.”

“Charge?”

Nod. “Child Services will try to set the Little Paul interview for tomorrow, Sunday, like they’re investigating the Little Paul complaint on the straight-up, not connected to IAD interviewing you on Monday for Coleen Brennan. When their interview’s over, Child Services will have the ASA charge you for Little Paul in time to make the next primetime newscasts. When IAD interviews you on Monday for Coleen Brennan, you’ll already be in handcuffs and a jumpsuit. Whoever used Danny Vacco to put you together knew what they were doing.”

“You honestly think Robbie and Lopez being shot has something to do with all the shit falling on me and Ruben?”

“I don’t believe in coincidence, and I sure as fuck don’t believe in explanations that require three ifs in them.” Buff glances our team. “The G’s got their bankroll; the bad guys got theirs. We got each other.” Buff extends his fist to knock mine. “Even if some of us ain’t going directly to Heaven.”

Whatever Moens said to her, Arleen hasn’t called back and it’s been an hour. I only resist calling again because the phone isn’t in my hand. River North revelers herd across Clark Street wearing T-shirts for tomorrow afternoon’s 2016 Olympics 10K through downtown. I brake, then pull up at the Mambo on North Clark.

My plan is: meet Barlow, get Arleen to call back and say we’re okay, then hunt down Danny Vacco. I don’t know what I’ll say to Barlow or Ruben; Danny Vacco’s different—he’ll have an epiphany or a funeral.

Tania Hahn steps out from the alley by the valet stand. She limps to my passenger window, leans on the sill, and smiles with three lines of stitches on her face and round Band-Aids on her arms. “Wanted to say thanks.”

I fish-eye her, then the street for how she knew I was coming here. “You lost?”

“Nope.”

I check the street again. “Sorry about Lopez.”

Hahn nods. “Good girl, worked with her in Miami; liked her a lot.”

“Undercover there, too?”

Sad smile. “That’s what we do.”

“Who gave us up?”

“Thought maybe we should talk about that.”

I wait for her to do that but she doesn’t.

Hahn looks south down Clark Street. “We—
you and I
—should talk first.”

“
I’m
the guy you’re after?”

Instead of answering, Hahn reaches for her back pocket, pulls out an ID wallet. It unfolds on the sill. CIA in capital letters, emblem, her picture. “This ID’s true. Mind if I get in?”

“You’re a spy? Working the West Side of Chicago?”

“Sort of.”

“Why Chicago? Why me?”

“Mind if I get in?” She opens the door, slides in with a wince, and sits back, the door still open, the interior light on us.

“Close that.”

She laughs and pats at the stitches. “Painkillers make a girl brave and forgetful.”

Frown. “Sure thing.”

Her eyes brighten. “You’re smarter than you look. Lots smarter than you act.”

“Why am I talking to the CIA?”

“I have a problem; you have multiple problems. Possibly we can help each other.”

The Mambo’s front door is where I should be. “I’m gonna kill Danny Vacco in a few minutes. Wanna help with that?”

“Maybe.” Smile, both eyes blink. “We occasionally step over the line.” The smile remains. “Allegedly.”

I make it fifty-fifty she actually means it, or it could be that Danny’s already on her payroll. “You were with me on Little Paul’s porch. You know I didn’t do shit.”

“I was there.” She doesn’t agree that I did nothing wrong.

“What do you want, Tania?”

“Help.”

“With what?”

She studies me. “How well do you know Robbie Steffen?”

“Never spoken to him.”

“Robbie Steffen has something I want.”

“Guess the Korean mafia wants it, too.”

Her eyes widen again. “Can’t wait to hear how you know that.”

“The two dead guys with him in the alley, rose tattoos on the forearms, that’s the Lawrence Avenue pedigree.”

“
Right, right
, you’re a policeman.” Wider smile. “Definitely should try some of these painkillers, stuff works.
Now
I understand why dope’s all over everywhere.”

“You were saying … Robbie Steffen?”

“Robbie’s father is kind of important, too.”

I stare, confused.
I’m
worthy of the CIA infiltrating a CPD gang team? Makes no sense, not if she wants Robbie Steffen and his father, Toddy Pete. “You live?”

She shows me her wrist, then tugs a mic and wire through her sleeve, and hands it to me. “I won’t tape you; you have my word.”

I accept the equipment because I’m curious, not because I believe her.

She says, “If we’re working together, you’ll have to trust me.”

“Now we’re partners?”

“Barlow and your brother can’t help you. I can.”

“I’m a child molester, maybe the rapist murderer of a thirteen-year-old.”

She shrugs. “Some of the people I work with have faults.”

Silence. Cars pass on Clark Street. We stare for a moment. I don’t ask her how she knows who I’m here to meet. “What the fuck do you want?”

“First, you wear a wire. On Robbie Steffen; then your sergeant, Buff Anderson; and maybe Toddy Pete Steffen
if
I can get you close enough—”

“Buff’s got nothing to do with those guys.”

Hahn holds up her hand. “Along the way, maybe we have to shoot a corporate CEO and a couple of girls who work for him—collateral damage, we call it. If we’re successful and don’t die, I’ll make Child Services go away; I’ll make Tracy Moens and the
Herald
print a retraction; and I’ll kill Danny Vacco while you watch.” Her face goes cherubic even with the stitch blotches. “Then we’ll pop down to the D.R., dance with some topless Latinas, smoke a Cohiba or two. Lopez and I used to do it every Christmas, lotta fun.”

I focus tighter on her eyes, a bit of sadness masked in the happy ever after. “How much of that shit did you take?”

The cherubic mask remains, but the sales pitch hardens to the original. “They don’t give these jobs to the Spice Girls. Lopez and I were the Wicked Witches of the East, we just didn’t look like sisters.”

The Shubert marquee is twenty blocks behind me.

Rush Street vibrates with its Saturday-night expectations. Limos and taxis crowd the curbs; revelers parade the European-style sidewalks under festive pole banners for the 2016 Olympics. Cole Porter drifts out from inside the Whiskey; Sinatra from Jilly’s. The tables out front are full and will be till closing. Soft neon and high-limit credit cards blush everybody beautiful.

Everyone but Ruben Vargas.

Ruben eyes the valets at Hugo’s eighty feet north, then tells me what we’re about to do—what
I’m
about to do. He says it matter-of-fact, but his posture is caged-animal calm, now both predator and prey. Ruben explains how he and I and his unnamed partner are going to “clean this up with Robbie and the Koreans.” Ruben says I’ll deliver a small package to two Japanese women who have, in the past, attempted to kill Ruben’s unnamed Vietcong partner. Not to worry; should these women misbehave again, Ruben and his partner will kill them.

More
murders
, like we’re discussing spoiled fruit. Robbie’s warning:
Jap motherfuckers will eat you three alive
. I’m considering those futures four feet from a cop who set me up to die six hours ago. My feet want to sprint but I force them not to move. Coleen and I win this time. The Olympics banners flutter above Ruben and me. I look and a slow, knowing smile breaks across Ruben’s face.

Ruben tosses me my purse. “Technically, if we drop the two Japs
we’d be committing murder, but that’d be for a jury to decide.” He shrugs a summer-weight jacket that doesn’t hide his gun or his hand near it. “Get a good lawyer who can sell you as a non-player? Then it’s self-defense.” Pause. “But Robbie’s alley in Greektown …”

My purse is light; Ruben kept the gun.

I step away from the bank’s shadows and into the only streetlight so Ruben can’t grab me and can’t misunderstand. “I’m calling Choa—your psycho Korean mob boss—how’s that? Telling him you’re selling his package to some Japanese women. Then I’ll call the
Herald
and tell them you’re threatening me with all kinds of frame-ups so I won’t talk to Tracy Moens about her exposé. Then you and I can go to the U.S. attorney, spill our guts about the Ruben-Robbie show. I’ll give her your envelope and we’ll see who wins.”

Ruben’s eyes widen. “I’m trying to help you and you wanna fuck me?
Chica
, you gotta get right. Hurting you doesn’t help me, and hurting me doesn’t help you.”

“Leave me alone or it’s Choa,
Herald
, U.S. attorney.”

Ruben’s reptile tongue shifts his toothpick. “Must not want to be in your play.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Uh-huh. Do anything other than what I say we gotta do, and I wouldn’t call your chances
chances
.”

“I don’t need your advice, but thanks.”

“The Japanese meet is set for tomorrow afternoon, Sunday—”

“You’re outta your goddamn mind. For real. Make an appointment; see somebody.”