Derailed (11 page)

“I think we ought to call the police,” she said again.

“They won't do anything this soon.”

“Harry, can't you call in a favor or two from your old buddies and get some more eyes out there looking? I'm gonna call the church and get a prayer chain going.” She headed up the stairs.

I sighed, but I was beginning to feel the panic as well. We had to do something!

I sat down on the stairs leading to our apart
ment and called Cindy Kaplan, my old partner at CPD, feeling as foolish as a new recruit on the first day of boot camp. Cindy was a good detective. We'd worked the SOS antidrug and gang unit together. She supported me in going up against Fagan, even though she couldn't risk putting her own career on the line. I knew I was out of line going to her with my request for help finding DaShawn. Still, she was my closest contact in the department.

“Hey, Cindy, it's Harry. How you doin'?”

“Couldn't be better. And you?”

“Not bad. Say, you wouldn't happen to be on the North Side right now, would you?”

“I'm home, Harry. It's my day off.”

“Oh . . . sorry. I shouldn't be botherin' you.”

“Nah, that's okay. What is it?”

“Ah, nothin'—”

“Don't tell me you called about nothing, Harry. I know you better'n that. Now what is it?”

I was sitting there, elbows on my knees, looking down at the three steps below me, when I heard a key turn in the front door, and it swung wide open with a swoosh.

There stood DaShawn, a big grin on his face.

“Ah . . . no problem, Cindy. Or perhaps, I should say, my problem just walked in the door.” I stared storm clouds at DaShawn as I talked and watched his grin dissolve. “I can handle it from here. Get back to you later.”

Rather than relief and gratefulness flooding me, my tension flipped to anger. I stood up, towering over the boy with all the intimidation I could muster. “So where have you been, young man?” I yelled. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rodney come to the doorway of the downstairs apartment, but I didn't care.

DaShawn's eyes widened. “What's the matter, Pops? I got in before the streetlights came on.”

“That isn't what I asked. I asked you where you've been?”

“Just across the street.” He tried to reignite the enthusiasm he'd burst in with. “I was at the Jaspers. They live right over there”—he pointed toward the north end of the block—“and the twins go to my school. I've known them all year, played with Tavis at school sometimes, but I had no idea they lived on this street. It's really cool, Pops. They were ridin' the same bus home, and we figured out we now live on the same block.”

I'd never heard of any Tavis, yet something told me to cool it, that this was one of the things I'd been hoping for. But I had a head of steam built up that needed blowing. “So you think that gives you an excuse to be over two hours late coming home from—”

“But the street lights aren't even on yet.” DaShawn looked past me up the stairs, and I realized Estelle had descended partway to join our family summit. “Isn't that the rule, Ms. Estelle, come home when the streetlights come on? I beat 'em.” When there was no answer from behind me, DaShawn looked over at his dad, standing in the doorway, appealing for an ally.

The fact that no one intervened bled off my remaining steam. I wouldn't have to fight this one on multiple fronts. I sighed deeply and came down off the steps to meet DaShawn on his own level. “Look, son, I'm glad you met some friends, and I'm glad . . . in fact, I'm delighted they live on this block if they're good people. But I don't think it would've cramped your style any to check in at home before going over to their house. In fact, the streetlight rule is for outside summer play when we know where you are. And besides—” I put my hands on my hips and leaned forward. “—you're
never
supposed to be in anyone else's house unless a parent is home and we've given permission.”

“But their older brother was there, and—”

“Older brother doesn't count, not unless we give permission. Understand?”

“Yes sir.” He dropped his head, and I knew it was over.

I glanced up the stairs at Estelle and could see the relief in her face. I turned back. “One more thing, DaShawn. You need to know we were all very worried. Your dad and I even retraced your route from here to school and back—”

“You did?” His eyes got big.

“Yeah, we did. And I called the school, called Josh Baxter at church, and . . . and when you came in, I was talking to my old partner at the CPD because we were about ready to file an official request for police help.”

I could see the shock spread across DaShawn's face. He got it. No need to rub it in any more.

I again looked up the stairs at Estelle. “When do you want us for supper?”

A small crinkle at the corners of her eyes told me she approved of how I'd handled things. “If DaShawn will come up and help me set the table, we can eat in about ten minutes.”

Lost a little more sleep that night, just coming down off the anxiety trip of worrying about DaShawn. But the next morning I caught the Metra train at the Rogers Park stop and headed down to the West Loop for my meeting with Captain Gilson. Entering Union Station from Adam Street, I might've missed the offices for the Amtrak Police if two uniforms hadn't been standing just outside. I was about to ask for directions when I noticed the APD sign on the glass doors behind them. A secretary led me through a dingy labyrinth to a small, windowless office that seemed far too cramped for a captain.

Gilson stood up quickly from his desk, thin and a little shorter than I'd remembered. His moderately spiked brown hair didn't
conceal that it was thinning and he was pushing fifty. With eyes wide and a rubber-face grin, he offered me his hand. “Phyllis, could you bring us a couple of cups of coffee? Cream, sugar, Harry?”

“Just black.”

Gilson came around his desk and hurriedly unloaded a stack of files off an old chrome tubing chair. “Sorry 'bout that,” he said. “Can't wait until we get our new offices. They're gonna be beautiful, over on the other side of the Great Hall. Here, sit down.”

Instead of sitting back down behind his desk, he dragged his chair around to sit with me in front of it. I was surprised by this unusually egalitarian gesture.

Gilson took a deep breath. “I'm so glad you called me back, Harry. Now, what can I do to entice you to join us?”

I was tempted to tell him two hundred grand a year would be a good start. But instead I said, “Well, I got to thinking about your earlier call and realized I might be ready to get back into law enforcement under the right conditions. Wanted to hear what you had in mind.”

The secretary delivered our coffees, and after Gilson took his first sip, he set his cup down and leaned forward. “I'm trying to put together a quality team here, Harry. I'm convinced passenger trains will play a much larger role in this country's transportation. We can't keep adding more highways and cars. Think of the environmental issues and our dependence on foreign oil. And the airlines are already feeling the stress of congestion. High-speed rails are comin'. Last fall I went to China and rode the MagLev train out of Shanghai—268 miles per hour. Can you believe that?”

Where was Gilson going with this? In spite of the president's vision, US trains were lucky to exceed a hundred miles an hour on a few short stretches. It'd be a long time before we had super trains.

But Gilson pressed on. “Progress requires consumer demand. Demand depends on consumer satisfaction. And that's where we come in. It's our job to make train travel safe and pleasant for the public. So, we have to stay ahead of any crime wave that frightens and threatens riders.”

“You talkin' about terrorists?”

“Well, sure, that's the big thing now in the media, but it's only part of it. I'm lookin' at the whole picture, and that's why I want the best team in the country based here in Chicago. See what I'm sayin'?”

I frowned. “And you think I might fit in . . . how?”

“You're a quality officer, Bentley. That's why I want you.”

“To do what, exactly?”

“Well, I'm flexible. Like I said, it's the team that's most important. Then we make sure everyone's doing what he or she can do best. I've been thinkin' about your potential with the K-9 unit. Did you enjoy workin' K-9?”

I thought for a moment and then nodded. I really had liked K-9 and might've stayed with it if I hadn't felt the need to focus more aggressively on drug and gang intervention.

“Well . . . ,” Gilson took another sip of his coffee and leaned back in his chair. “. . . we have a spot for you there.”

I stared at him, using an old interview technique of simply remaining silent until the other person filled the vacuum with more information.

“I think you asked me what rank you'd start at since you were a detective, but most dog handlers are just officers or occasionally a sergeant.”

“Yeah, that's a question I'd have.”

“We can be creative here, Harry. I also asked you about workin' undercover, remember?” He got up, went behind his desk, and rummaged through some files on a shelf. “I'm always lookin' for innovative solutions.” He held up a thin folder and waved it toward me. “I think I found a creative precedent the brass did in Philadelphia. Remember how I suggested you might use your experience of being blind to work undercover? Well, that isn't what they did in Philadelphia, but . . . tell me, what do you think of when you think of a blind person?”

Think of? All I could think of was the horror I'd gone through when I'd had to wear patches on both eyes for days at a time. “Uh . . . don't know. Guess I felt I was too old to adjust to losin' my sight.” I shrugged,
embarrassed at how low the ordeal had taken me. In fact, at one point I thought I'd rather be dead—but I wasn't going to tell Gilson that.

“No, no, no. I'm not talking about how you
felt
about your own situation. I wanna know, when you see a blind person on the street, how do you know he's blind?” From behind his desk, Gilson beckoned at me with both hands.

“Uh, red-and-white cane, dark sunglasses . . .”

“And? What else might you see if they're out in public?”

Why was he playing this game with me? “I dunno . . . seeing-eye dog?”

“There you go! A service dog! Blind people often have a service dog, and they can go anywhere with 'em. The ADA guarantees it—walkin' down the street, into restaurants, even on trains. In fact, we have special accommodations for 'em. And they can go anywhere on the train, no questions asked. You see what I'm getting at?”

Suddenly, it all clicked, and Gilson's “creativity” didn't seem so farfetched. “You want me to be an undercover agent posing as a blind person with a service dog that is actually a bomb-detecting dog?”

“Almost.” Gilson returned to the chair in front of his desk and leaned forward again with an eager expression. “We've got explosive-detection dogs, even vapor-wake dogs that can smell explosives on a suicide bomber just by walking past the person. Those dogs are amazing, better than any of the scanners the TSA uses at airports. But Sylvia Porter's dog, Corky, is trained for drug interdiction. The DEA has been claiming more and more drugs are moving on the trains, and they're probably right too.”

“Look, Gilson. How long do you think it'd take for the gangs or the drug cartels to learn that the blind man who spends every day all day wandering around Union Station in Chicago is really a narc?”

“Well, around the station, I think you'd mostly work in uniform, but on the trains you'd be undercover. Different days, different trains, you might not be back on the same train for a couple of weeks, not very likely you'd get made.”

It made sense, but I waved him off with my hands. “Like I told you before, I'm a family man now. Traveling across the country
by train doesn't fit with my position in life. You need to find some single person where being gone for several days doesn't matter.”

“Yeah but, like I told
you
, it wouldn't be that way. You know how many trains we could put you on for a day trip, there and back, and have you home in time for supper at night?”

“Ha, ha. I have no idea, but that promise is only as good as the on-time schedule of the trains. Right?”

“But we're getting better!” Gilson laughed with me. “Seriously, Chicago's a hub. Say we think dope's coming in from New Orleans, you don't have to go all the way to the Gulf to intercept it. We could send you down to Carbondale in the evening, and you could catch the City of New Orleans and be back by morning.”

“I'd be gone all night?”

Gilson shrugged and made a no-problem frown. “That's just an example. What I'm trying to say is there're ways to manage a civilized schedule. Sure, there'd be the occasional longer runs, but we'd try to keep those at a minimum and give you comp time when they came up. You know we can't run the dogs twenty-four/seven.”