Start Shooting (34 page)

Jason keeps one hand on Buff’s nephew. “Tracy Moens was just in here. Said Jewboy’s dead and Buff’s in ICU ’cause of you, Ruben, Robbie Steffen, and the Brennan sisters.”

“And you believe Moens?” I wipe at the blood again. “A reporter stirring the pot?”

“Ruben, Jewboy, and Buff throw down at breakfast, now Jewboy’s dead and Buff’s here. Two hours before that, you’re up here with Robbie. Somebody shot him, too, didn’t they? Ruben’s your brother. Half the kids in Chicago say you’re fucking them in the ass. You didn’t pass the polygraph—”

“The hell I didn’t.”

“The operator says Buff covered for you.”

I fix on Jason, then the crowd behind him, everyone waiting for my answer, for me to
convince
them. It takes effort to make my lips move. “I did not give up the Toyota. I didn’t kill Coleen Brennan.”

Our new commander, the Hispanic highflier from the North Side, bumps through the crowd to Jason and me. She says, “Talk. Right now. That’s an order,” then grabs my arm and leads me forty feet away. “What were your brother and Sergeant Anderson fighting about?”

I blink at her, then past her, focusing on my team,
my family
. Glaring at me, seeing a child killer, child molester who’s been alone with their kids.

“Officer Vargas.”

I cut back. “What?”

“How is the Mesrow/Anderson shooting connected to Coleen Brennan and your brother?”

“Connected?”

She stares piercing brown eyes and stiffens to full height in her uniform and graduate degree from Northwestern. “Answer the question.”

“I just came from the morgue. Maybe you can give me a minute—”

“We don’t have a minute. We want the shooters of officers Mesrow and Anderson, even if you don’t. And if that’s connected to the Coleen Brennan rape/murder, so be it.”

I lean back, stunned. “Coleen and my brother? Is that what you said?”

“Answer the question, Officer Vargas. I can’t stop these men behind me if they decide—”

“I’m here to see Buff.” I push past my commander to the ICU door and the nurse guarding it. “Buff wants to see me. Really important to him, life-or-death important.”

The nurse says, “No one can see Sergeant Anderson.”

“Let me stand at the window, just for a second. Buff has to know I’m here.”

“I’ll tell him.” She turns to leave and I grab her arm.

“He has to see me. I won’t say a word. Promise.”

The nurse extricates her arm, turns again, but stops, eyes the armed, angry crowd behind me, and says, “C’mon, it’ll help calm everyone down.” She leads me through double doors into the ICU. Standing at the nurses’ station is U.S. Attorney Jo Ann Merica and two FBI agents. All three are on their phones. One touches Merica’s shoulder and points at me.

The window to Buff’s room frames his wife, Sandy, and their three daughters at his bed. The nurse allows me to stand in the doorway, then turns to Merica and tells all three to quit their phones. Eight feet from me, Buff is motionless, swollen and bruised. Tubes are taped to his neck, down his nose, in his mouth. The white hair is wilted against pasty gray skin. All but one arm is tight under a sheet and thin blanket. Monitors blip. His eyes are open and don’t blink, he and death’s door are having their conversation. Buff’s daughter Sasha, the one with MD, sniffles at her father’s feet, rubbing his blanket, asking God to let her daddy come back home.

Sandy sees me, shields her eldest girl, and walks to the doorway. Sandy’s eyes are red, she’s shaking. “No, Bobby. You can’t come in here.”

Behind Sandy, the three girls watch us, searching our eyes and body language for clues, anything that will explain their father’s chances. “I didn’t do any of it, Sandy.”

Anger bleeds through her fear. “Buff said your brother’s dirty. Did Ruben shoot my husband? Is that why you’re here?”

“No. Ruben didn’t—And that’s not why I’m here. I love Buff; he’s mistaken.”

“Is he?” Sandy points. “Who’s on that bed fighting for his life? Not you. Not Ruben.”

I bite back the anger. “I love your husband, no matter what he said or what he thinks.”

The monitors blip. Sandy steps to the bed, a wife and mother on the vigil she’s dreaded every night for thirty-plus years. I step past Sandy to the bed, telling my friend and his daughters, “Your dad will be okay because he’s Buff Anderson. He survived being shot in Vietnam; he’ll walk out of Mercy.” I look at each daughter and tap my heart. “I know it right here.”

The nurse reaches in for my arm. “Officer.”

I turn to Sandy. “Did Buff ever mention a girl from Vietnam, Lý Thi Loan or White Flower Lý?”

Sandy leans back. “Why?”

I grab her arm. “What’d she want? What’d she say?”

Sandy pulls her arm away. “A woman called early this morning, woke us up. Buff said he knew her in Vietnam when she was a girl, hadn’t heard from her in forever, but he didn’t say her name.”

“What’d she want?”

“She was in some kind of trouble. Bob called Jewboy, said they’d make a pass on ‘Tu Do Street,’ then go find you.”

“Me?”

Sandy wipes at swollen eyes, not looking at me. “Bob said the girl/woman was with a nun from the Four Corners.”

“A nun?”

“The nun ran an orphanage or something during the war, in Saigon on Tu Do Street. Bob helped the nun get out when Saigon fell. Seven or eight years later the nun and Bob helped the girl come over.”

The nurse grips my arm and pulls. I jerk it free, glare her back on her heel, then turn back to Buff’s wife. Tu Do Street I’ve never heard of. But if Buff’s nun was from the Four Corners, she had to be at St. Dom’s. Where the Brennan sisters went. “What’s the nun’s name?”

“Bob didn’t say.”

“Did he say where she was now? The nun?”

“No.”

The nurse slides in front of Sandy, pushes me off-balance out of the room, then blocks the door. Jo Ann Merica steps up. “We’re running out of time to get you on the right side, Officer Vargas. I’m sure Tania Hahn has detailed the potential severity.”

“Hahn told me a story; put Robbie Steffen in it, then tried to put Buff in and my brother. For all I know you’re in it, too.”

Merica blinks the thirty-two-degree eyes. “Hahn’s ‘story’ is surrounded by a mounting level of violence, serious conditions that could lead to—”

“
Serious conditions?
Like Jewboy being dead? And Buff in there dying? That what you mean?”

“My condolences. But the stakes are far higher than the current casualties.”

“Can’t get any higher for me.”

“Unfortunately for all of us, I’m afraid they can.” Pause. “Internal Affairs will be questioning you tomorrow morning
under oath
regarding
multiple
child molestation complaints. Undoubtedly, this will include questions concerning Coleen Brennan, while your brother is being deposed
under oath
at the Federal Building regarding
Coleen Brennan
. Once you two begin publicly convicting yourselves, my help will no longer be sufficient.”

“If you want help, tell me Hahn’s ‘story,’ if you know it. The whole thing.”

She straightens. “That’s not how it works.”

“Then pardon me when you’re governor.” I step around the U.S. attorney and through the doors. Jason jumps out of the waiting-room crowd, grabs my arm, and pushes us up to the first intersection.

“I want answers, Bobby. I want ’em now. Don’t give a fuck how mad it makes you.”

I jerk free.

Jason grabs me with both hands. “Did your brother’s business get Jewboy and Buff shot? Is this Coleen Brennan? Tomorrow’s depositions?”

I spit in his face. “Fuck you.”

Jason slams me into the wall. “No more disappearing, not till we hear what the fuck’s up.”

“I have to find Ruben.”

“Fuck Ruben. If he’s part of Buff and Jewboy, I shoot his ass with your gun.”

My eyes narrow. “Whatever he is, Ruben’s my brother. Hurt him and you better kill me.”

Jason pushes Jewboy’s badge into my face. “We can do that.”

——

I back away from Jason until I can bolt through the emergency room crowd. Tania Hahn’s outside, engine running in a ’03 Ford Taurus, door open. I dive in and she slams the gas. “Got an address on White Flower Lý. Think your brother’s with her.” Hahn’s no longer interested in me wearing a wire. “Bad news is the Koreans may have finally pegged her, too.”

My feet brace into the floorboard. Ruben would be hard for the Koreans to corner, to trap. Hahn changes lanes, missing the fifth bumper by inches. Her near-death jerks and weaves mash into a familiar metal blur, the precontact rush to the destination, situations that nine times out of ten will end the same way. Sun glares the windshield blind. She tells her phone, “Car one en route. Bag the Koreans if they’re on the apartment.” Hahn asks me, “What’d Anderson say?”

“What’s ‘bag the Koreans’ mean?”

“
Shoot them
. What’d Anderson say?”

“Buff’s in a coma.”

Hahn brakes hard facing an oncoming semi and veers westbound out of Michigan Avenue’s southbound lanes onto Thirty-first. Cars line both sides of the residential street. We center-line way too fast to not kill a kid or a dog.

“Slow down.”

Hahn doesn’t slow until she turns south at Morgan and we enter the 3400 block. I don’t see Koreans. Or Ruben’s car. My brother. The Hokkaido package. Blackmail. Murder. We loop the block north, then south—no Ruben, no Koreans—then back to Lý’s building, and park in her alley. Hahn tells her phone, “We’re here.” She listens through an earpiece, says, “Cover the front. We’re going in.” Hahn nods me out and we run for Lý’s six-flat, guns drawn.

Lý’s shotgun apartment is on the bottom floor, door open. The three rooms have been torn apart. We clear a wrecked living room–bedroom and kitchen for threat, then the bathroom. No sign Ruben’s been here. Glaring among the shambles is an expensive, undamaged dresser. Carefully arranged on the dresser are china bowls, fruit, candles, and petite sepia photographs in expensive frames. Not uncommon in the Four Corners and all over Chinatown.

I hear myself say, “Ancestor altar, Spirit House.”

Hahn begins to pick through the rubble. “Look for broken vials or green rubberized seals. If you see ’em, we’re already dead.”

We sift through Lý’s belongings but find no vials or green rubberized seals. Hahn quits searching and steps up to the ancestor altar. She looks at me, then points at three brass shell casings. “Japanese 7.7s … from World War II.” Her expression isn’t comforting. Hahn does a slow three-sixty of the apartment.

I add Hahn’s expression and the World War II reference to the damage all around us, try to see the room being torn apart. Maybe Lý’s apartment wasn’t searched. Maybe we’re surrounded in
rage
. I say what Hahn is thinking: “These altars are for veneration … Veneration doesn’t include your enemies, mass murderers who slaughtered your ancestors.”

“Nope. And veneration doesn’t include one dollar of blackmail money.” Hahn stares at the 7.7 shells. “We’re in a zero-sum game. Money isn’t the answer. What Lý’s ancestors want is
revenge.
”

I three-sixty again. “But why all the theater? Just shoot Dr. Ota on today’s reviewing stand, spend the next ten years lecturing the media from Stateville.”

Hahn nods, eyes still on the altar. “Unless you actually
had
something bigger than a gun; something with
scale;
something with
irony
. ’Cause, God bless ’em, Asians love irony.”

“Nah. That’d mean White Flower Lý is running a game on … her partners—”

“On
Ruben
. Get used to saying his name. Game or not,
Ruben’s
our bad guy.”

“ ’Cause you assholes never make a mistake, right?”

Hahn stares. “Who shot Jewboy and your sergeant? I hear a new witness ID’d a second perp to the feds—an average-size
male
driver. One male and one
Asian
female. Smell like any duo we know?”

I have to step back not to hit her. No way possible my brother shot Jewboy.

“What’d you hear at the hospital? Bona fide good-guy Buff Anderson confess before he stairwayed to heaven?”

My fist balls. “His wife said a woman called early this morning. Buff got dressed, said he was making a pass on ‘Tu Do Street.’ But no way
Buff takes Jewboy if Buff’s committing felonies. Buff must’ve figured something, scared somebody. The call was a setup—”

“Tu Do Street was Saigon’s R&R playground during the war. Our mystery nun’s orphanage was at the bottom by the river. Lý Thi Loan—aka White Flower Lý—worked up the street out of the Continental Palace Hotel.” Hahn nods at the altar. “Hundred percent this woman shot Jewboy and your sergeant.”

“Then she’s dead.”

“No, she’s with your brother—”

I swing. Hahn ducks, steps back, and flashes a military fighting knife. “Can’t shoot you, Bobby, not yet. But you’re not putting your hands on me.”

I take a breath, then another. “And you’re not shooting my brother.” Hahn shows me the knife. “Winner goes to the hospital. That’ll be me.”

“Hurt Ruben”—I point at her forehead—“9-millimeter between your eyes.”

“How about we sift this debris one more time?” Hahn twists the knife behind her forearm. “So we can find White Flower and … her partner.”

I jab a finger at her. “Buff and Jewboy aren’t guilty.”

“Whatever you say, Bob.”

Six minutes of searching yields no evidence that Ruben, Buff, or the Hokkaido package has ever been here. It does yield two two-by-three yellowed photos, one a close-up of a brick building, the other of a nun. The building seems familiar, the nun doesn’t but her habit does. I show the nun to Hahn. “Sisters of Providence—they’re a teaching order based in Indiana, ran St. Dom’s until it closed.”

Hahn grabs the picture, turns it over, and back. I give her the other photo. She does the same, then looks at me. “What happened to the nuns at St. Dom’s after it closed?”

I point north toward Twenty-second Street in the Four Corners. “Some might have gone to Cristo Rey, a church, school, and convent. It’s in my district.”

Hahn examines the building photo again. “Is this Cristo Rey?”

I take the photo back, try to see it different. “Not Cristo Rey. Could be St. Dom’s. The shadows make it look funny, might be the south corner.”
Something clicks. “Buff’s wife said the nun Buff helped in Vietnam … came to the Four Corners.”