Blood of Paradise (16 page)

From time to time he glanced sidelong at Strock, to see how he was holding up. Not well, and everybody could see it. Then the gate crew announced final boarding on the PA. Jude took Strock's arm, told the security team, “Appreciate your hearing me out,” and dragged Strock with him toward the gate, whispering, “For the love of God, don't say a word.”

They made it to the gate just in time. As they were lurching down the jetway, Strock suddenly stopped, grabbed Jude's arm, and spun him around. He had that same lost keen in his eyes. Then everything seemed to melt.

“I'm sorry,” he murmured.

“Me too. I was out of line.”

“That's not it.” Strock licked his lips and glanced toward the waiting plane. “I mean, hey, you're right. Seriously, what kind of life have I made here that anybody but a crazy wouldn't walk away from in a heartbeat? It's just …” His voice grew thready.

“Look,” Jude said, “give it a try. Two weeks. It doesn't work out, I'll pay your airfare back. How's that sound?”

15

They were airborne over the Great Plains, heading west toward Los Angeles. Strock sat at the window, Jude on the aisle, the seat between them empty except for manhandled magazines.

Strock ordered two Michelobs when the service cart came around, downed one almost instantly, then nursed the second. Not wanting to seem a killjoy, Jude ordered one as well but just held it in his lap as he mulled things over. He felt lucky to have dodged a bullet back at O'Hare, and gave himself credit for some fast thinking. There was something empowering about getting away with a lie. And that's how things always started, right? A little deceit, crowned with a little success. Next thing you know: You're a Laugh Master.

Strock saw Jude wasn't watching the in-flight movie and leaned across the middle seat. Checking that no one was eavesdropping, headsets on all around, he said, “So, you want to hear the story?”

Jude met his eyes. “What story?”

“About how your old man saved my life.”

Jude found it interesting the way both Strock and Malvasio felt a need to share redeeming stories about his dad. He shrugged. “Long flight.”

“Exactly.” Strock smiled. His eyes seemed clear again. “I mean, if you'd rather—”

“No. Tell me.”

Strock undid his seatbelt, cleared away the dog-eared magazines, put his cane to one side, and hefted himself into the middle seat. The tight space cramped his bad knee but he'd yet to complain. By the same token, Jude's shoulder ached from where Strock had thwacked it; a knot the size of a plum congealed in the muscle.

Strock made another reconnoiter of the nearest seats. His breath had a warm, malty tang from the beer as he said quietly, “You remember a guy named Hank Winters, cop who got greased the night before your dad and me were arrested?”

Jude thought about Malvasio's confession and warned himself not to give anything away. “I remember the story. Don't think I ever met the guy.”

“I doubt you did. Wasn't the social butterfly and thank God for that. Winters was filth.”

“That seems to be the consensus. I mean, from what I heard on the news after the arrests.”

“Don't get me started on the fucking news. Didn't tell half. Or even half of half.”

“Okay.”

“And the half of a half they did tell they didn't get right.”

Strock went on to recount the same story Malvasio had told, the start of it anyway, about Winters with his crackhead snitch, the warrant that went bad, the murder of the much-liked young cop. “Winters and Bill were two of a kind, which meant they hated each other's guts. After Winters skates through IAD, he hunts up Bill, lets it drop that one of his contacts on the street—‘a witness,' he says, the dick—knows what Bill and me and your dad have been up to. There were rumors of heat by then, we were all a little on edge. Winters says for a price he can suggest this witness take a vacation. For a little more, he hands us a name, we can do what we please.”

Jude felt like stopping him, confirming that this witness was the working girl who'd had a two-year thing with his dad. But then he'd have to explain how he knew, and that could get tricky. Then it registered:
do what we please
.

“Bill figures Winters is wired, saying this. So he plays dumb. Tells Winters he hasn't got a clue what he's talking about. This so-called witness can't know squat because nothing's been going on, yack yack. But Bill knows, Winters knows, the whole fucking world knows that some woe-is-me loser crying crooked cop finds the right prosecutor? No way she won't get a hearing. On top of that—”

“How do you know it was a she?”

Strock blinked, straddling words. “What do you mean?”

“This witness who had the drop on you guys. You said ‘she.' How do you know that?”

From somewhere behind them, a baby started crying. Strock turned at the sound, then said, “What's your point exactly?”

“No point. I just—”

“Tell you what—let me run through the story, then you can ask anything you want on the back end. That work for you?”

It seemed wise not to press. “Sorry.”

“Not a problem. Okay. Bill reminds Winters that your dad has a family. He can't afford the legal bills that'd mount up, defending himself against the kind of things this ‘witness' might ‘allege.' Any event, Bill says, again just to protect your dad, he will personally pay off this sack of crap, through Winters.”

Jude stepped in again. “Wait. Back up. I'm confused.” He was having trouble making the two stories fit.

“It's like Shakedown 101. Winters says—”

“That's not the part I'm confused about.”

“Bill—and I gotta give him credit for this—Bill played it smart. He denies everything but then offers to pay off Winters anyway.”

“There—why would he do that?”

“Think about it. Winters has gone head-to-head with IAD and walked out clean as a cat's ass. Bill figures everything he tells Winters is getting said into a wire. So he denies it all.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I get that part. But why offer to pay, then?”

“Where's that put Winters? He accepts, makes it look like he's extorting an innocent cop—who's trying to protect not just a buddy but his family. That'll be on tape. Jury won't like that.”

“I'm sorry to sound dense—”

“If Winters was working for IAD, he'd refuse the money, say this supposed witness will just testify to what she knows and the chips'll fall wherever. Let Bill make the move after that. Otherwise it looks like entrapment. But none of that happened. Winters just wanted the cash.”

Finally, it occurred to Jude what was bothering him. “When was this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Time-wise. This all happened the night before the arrests?”

It was Strock's turn to be baffled. “Who said that? No. This is, like, two months before.”

It shouldn't have hit as hard as it did, but Jude realized only then that Malvasio hadn't just shaded things differently or left out a detail or two. He'd lied.

“So Bill sets up a meet with Winters, picks this alley between some run-down warehouses near the hooker strip over around Rockwell Gardens. I climb up the fire escape to a roof nearby, see if Winters gets shadowed by a tac unit or a surveillance van. Turns out he comes alone, which was what we figured would happen.”

“My dad wasn't there?”

Strock groaned, the interruptions. “We decided to leave your dad out.”

“How come?”

“Reasons. All right? Let me finish. Winters gets out of his car, walks up, and Bill says he's only been able to come up with a third of what Winters wants. He needs another week to pony up the rest. Winters bitches but takes the cash. Boom, that's it. He's dirty. There was no wire. This was extortion, straight up, no frills.”

The stewardess—thirty-ish, plump but pretty—came by, collecting empties. Strock downed the last of his second beer, passed her his two dead soldiers, and asked for another Michelob. Jude stood pat.

“Winters wants the rest of his money the following week. We meet the same place. I come along again but this time Bill brings a throwaway—this AK-47 bought from some gun monkey in the Robert Taylor projects. It's a crap weapon but untraceable so you make do. Besides, I'm a pretty good shot. Malvasio tells me to take up position at a window facing the street on the top floor of one of the warehouses along the street. When Winters gets out of his car …” Strock let the last word linger.

“Were you drinking as bad back then?” It came out cold and Jude regretted that but the thought had been hovering there for a while.

Strock looked stung, then outraged. The anger simmered a bit. “Yeah. Chipping the blow pretty hard, too. Touché. I was out of control. Which meant I didn't have a problem with one thing Bill suggested. Rob bangers? Lead the way. Take Hank Winters out of the box? Sounds like a good deed. And you'd be hard-pressed to find a cop in Chicago who wouldn't second that.”

“Listen—”

“He let another cop walk into an ambush. Plus, on the personal front, he was squeezing us. Your dad as much as me and Bill. More, you want the truth.”

“Yeah, I do. The truth would be a nice change of pace.”

Strock made a face like that was just the funniest thing. “You think I'm lying?”

“I'm just saying—”

“You realize the problem with the truth, right? It's never really the truth. Specially in a thing like this.”

“My point—”

“Way I looked at it? It was like chemo. You poison somebody to cure their cancer. Well, Winters was the cancer. We were the poison.”

Jude's mind was whirling. “Wait. Go back a little. You said this was two months before the arrests.”

“Right.”

“But Winters wasn't killed until—”

“Exactly. Winters ended up dead and hooray for that, but I had nothing to do with it. I never made it into position that night. I got inside, started climbing to the top floor of the warehouse? The stairs—planks were rotted so bad they felt like cork. One gave way. I crashed clear through to the next stairway down. Damn near went through that flight too. Good thing I had the safety on or I might've blown my own head off. Not all the wood was rotted, though—too bad for me. This splinter, big fucking thing—right through my knee, tore the peroneal nerve. Felt like somebody slammed a screwdriver into the bone and left it there. I was choking on dust, tasted like rat poison, damn near blind from the pain, but I didn't want to call out or anything, might freak Winters, get Bill shot. That's what I was thinking. Thoughtful me.”

“But you got out.”

“Oh, there's a whole lot more to the story before
that
happens.” Strock checked over his shoulder, wondering where his beer was. “Bill had no idea I was in trouble. He just knew Winters didn't take a bullet to the head as he sashayed up and demanded his money. Bill didn't have it, natch, because he expected Winters to be dead before it became an issue. He had to sorry up an excuse and beg more time. Winters wasn't the type to put up with that.”

“So, what—he went to IAD?”

“I don't know for sure. I think Bill paid him a few more times, never everything, string him along. Till he killed him. You knew that, right?”

Jude froze. “Yeah. I mean, again, the news.” He had no clue where to go from there.

“I don't remember the news ever saying up front Bill was the doer.”

“No. They suggested. I just figured—”

“Your dad ever say anything?”

“Pop? No. Never. Anyway, back to this witness. What happened to her?”

Strock flopped his hands open. “Can't say. We never had to bother with her, I know that much. At least, not that me or my lawyer ever heard about. Maybe with Winters aced out she figured her point man was gone and she didn't want to risk coming forward alone. Any event, this is the story about how your dad saved my life, right? So let me get to that part.”

The pretty plump stewardess arrived finally with Strock's Michelob. She was wearing fresh lipstick and framed her smile as she counted out his change. As she strolled off, Strock hoisted himself a little in his seat to steal a peek at her hip action.

“Bill figured I'd just lost my nerve. He came in expecting to rip me a new one. And even when he found out what really happened it didn't change his mood much. I'm lying there coughing up filth, my leg's all bloody and pinned beneath a tangle of crap. I took a beating, my back's twisted up, my hands are shredded from trying to break my fall. You name it. But Bill? To him it's, like, all my fault. Plus he figures I'm faking how bad I'm hurt because I fucked up the hit. Know what he said? ‘You got yourself into this. Now get yourself out.' Exit Bill.”

“How long before—”

“Spent the whole night there. Freezing cold. Fending off rats. Hands and legs went numb, but the bleeding wasn't too bad, didn't fall completely into shock, thank God. About dawn, your dad shows up.”

“How'd he know you were there?”

“Bill, I guess. Even lizards have a conscience.” He said it like it pained him, then slugged back some beer.

“What did my dad say when he got there?”

“Nothing. He just came in, looked around till he found me, dug me out—I was loopy from dehydration and the pain. He hefted me up in a fireman's carry and got me out to his car. Had a thermos of coffee he poured down my throat. On the way to the ER we worked up a story about an accident fixing up your basement and that's what we told the intake nurse.”

Strock sat back in his seat and stared out the window. The spine of the Rocky Mountains stitched through hardpack snow beneath an iron gray sky.

“Any event, that's the story. Bill left me for dead. By the time he told your dad where I was, dead's exactly what I should've been. And on some level I'm sure good ol' Bill was hoping I would be. You act like you don't know but I'm telling you, him and your old man were tighter than tight. Me, I was the third tit. And like I said, I had problems of my own. Bill saw that as just one more liability. Leave me there, turn his back, let me die—such a gift. But your dad didn't think that way. One big reason I'm on this plane, I remember that.”