Precinct 11 - 01 - The Brotherhood (30 page)

“And you were how old?”

“Not even sixteen yet.”

“And you’re what now?”

“Thirty-six. A lot more killing since then,
amigo
.” He pointed to the tattooed crosses encircling his neck. He had started on a second row. “Twenty-three.”

“How did you feel—right after that, I mean? Any trouble sleeping? Any conscience over it?”

“I only had trouble sleeping because of the excitement. I was still livin’ at home then. I was proud of myself, lying there a murderer while my mother slept in the next room. I was afraid of nothing. I had a whole new image and place in the Latin Kings, and everybody knew I’d shoot them dead for any reason, even another King.”

“No wonder you were in the leadership by the time you were twenty.”

“Straight up. Man, I knew I was going to hell. Only thing I felt bad about was my
madre
took the blame. She knew who I was and what I was, and she cried and prayed and pleaded and said it was all her fault. I don’t know how many times I told her it wasn’t and that this was all on me, but you know moms.”

Boone nodded.

“You know what my favorite story was back then, the one I used to keep everybody in line?”

Boone shook his head.

“Carlos Robles. You know that story?”

“Sure. The guy who got ground up and served in the meat loaf at Stateville back in ’83. How much of it is true?”

“All of it. He wasn’t loyal, so a hit was put out on him right there in prison. Couple of our guys got a guard to let them use a downstairs room for a party. They was gonna celebrate his release in a couple of days. He was happy to go, you know? They get him down there, kill him, cut his head off, chop him up, and smuggle bags of him to the prison kitchen, where he becomes part of the main course. That was a pretty recent story by the time I joined, and back then I thought it was beautiful. You know they had to bury his skull, ’cause that wouldn’t process.”

“They dug that up in ’95, I think,” Boone said.

“There you go. And Stateville? They couldn’t find him anywhere, so until they found that skull, they thought he had escaped—two days before he was supposed to get out! Tell you something, man, a story like that will keep guys in line.”

“So you become a big deal, one of the most feared guys in Chicago.”

“Yeah, but I get a little too famous. I’m living the high life. All the money and women and toys I want. I wouldn’t have had to do any of the dirty work myself ever again. I had thousands of lieutenants who would do anything I said. But I loved being in the middle of all of it. I had a feeling I was being bugged and watched and followed, all that. But I got invited to a meeting with the head of the Chicago Outfit and went anyway. Talk about somebody bein’ watched. The feds, everybody had to be on his tail for years. How stupid was I?”

“Where’d you meet with him? You couldn’t have gone into his neighborhood.”

“No, man, those guys are smart. ’Least they think they are. They keep their business from their families. You don’t go to their houses. They have places. But I demanded neutral ground. I didn’t know what this guy wanted, but I sure wanted to find out. Anything to make the Kings bigger, you know? We met in one of the forest preserves.”

“And who was there?”

“Graziano Jacopo himself and a bunch of his guys. I went alone to show ’im I wasn’t scared of nothing. It worked. He looked scared the whole time, like I was gonna pull a blade on him or something. He says to me, ‘Coming by yourself is very impressive. Very risky but also impressive.’

“I said, ‘Risky? You think my people don’t know where I am or who I’m with? They know where you live, Grazzy, and they know where your associates live. They also know your grandkids’ names and where they go to school.’

“He said, ‘There’s no need to be rattling our sabers,’ and I said, ‘Just give me one reason.’”

“You called him Grazzy, really?”

“You bet I did. I wasn’t afraid of an old Italian. I probably shoulda been, but you got to understand gangbangers to know I didn’t fear nothin’.”

“Grazzy rhymes with Jazzy.”

That stopped the big man. He squinted and held Boone’s gaze. “So?”

“We’ve got to talk about him, you know.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Plenty, but we’ll get to him. Stick with Grazzy for now.”

It seemed to Boone that it took PC a few moments to collect himself and get back on track.

“Well, uh, anyway, you know he tells me he wants to farm out a couple of hits, that the feds and the Crime Commission are all over him and he can’t let ’em trace his enemies’ deaths back to him. I tell him to just tell me who and where to find them and how much it’s worth to him. He gives me a figure. I triple it. He says no. I stand to go. He caves and agrees. We got it done for him.”

Boone stood and leaned against a counter, glancing at his watch. “That was before my time, but the department still talks about how puzzling those hits were. Organized Crime figured out pretty quick that it wasn’t some gang against the Outfit but rather the Outfit against itself and using you. But CPD couldn’t pin it on anyone.”

“You know why?” Candelario said.

“Too many of you, all with the same MO?”

“That’s only part of it. Thing is, even I don’t know who did it. We—me and Jazzy—bring in our best guys, tell them what their part of the take will be when the deal gets done, and the next morning I see dead guys on the front page of the
Trib
. I pay the lieutenants, they pay the guys, and even I don’t know who did it. The paper says Mob guys get killed but that it looks more like the work of gangbangers than Mafia hit men. We had a good laugh over that one.”

“So you were pretty much at the top or close to it, weren’t you, Pascual?”

“Till I got sloppy; what can I tell you? I don’t know if they had me meeting with Jacopo and his guys or not, but somehow they were hotter on my tail than ever. I muscled the wrong guys, got busted, and was sent up.”

“Stateville didn’t slow you down, though, did it?”

“You know, at first it did. I had a lot of friends in there, but the gangs were hurting each other. It didn’t make sense to me. And when I heard about other gang co-ops around the country, it just seemed like a good idea.”

“So you did this just to be smart.”

Pascual nodded. “I didn’t know all of what forming the DiLoKi Brotherhood would mean, but man, it was like a new place overnight. Everybody was welcome, and it was going to be us against the man instead of against each other all the time.”

“And it pretty much worked out that way.”

Pascual nodded, looking distracted. “Safe to walk outside here?”

“Sure, unless you’re afraid of my guys. You think they want anything to happen to you?”

PC laughed. “I need some air.”

“Frigid.”

“Only for somebody with no insulation, like you.”

“I’ll be fine,” Boone said, zipping his coat.

It was even colder than he expected. Boone thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and as he and Candelario moved in and out of the shadows of the parking lot light fixtures, they were bathed in their own breath vapors.

“So what happened to you, PC?”

The big man stopped under a light. “You know, Boone, it was the strangest thing. . . .”

He paused as if looking for words. Were they going to forge a relationship after all, even a friendship? Boone let the silence stand until his phone chirped. He peeked to see a text from Jack.

UR out of sight. OK? Respond immediately.

“Your guys worried about you?” Pascual said.

“Yeah, till you just said that. You were saying . . .”

“Well, it’s a funny thing, man. My mom had me where she wanted me, stuck in one place for five years. She wrote me all the time, and I mean all the time. And she came to see me every time she was allowed. Every letter told me I needed to get right with God, get saved, turn to Jesus, all that. It was kinda sweet, really, but for a long time it didn’t get through at all. I kept telling her I believed in God and sometimes I told her I knew I was going to hell. I know it really hurt her when I said that, and even more when I said I didn’t care. The thing was, it was true. I did not care, man. I knew who I was and what I was, and I wasn’t scared of anything. I mean, I guess if I had thought about it, I wouldn’t choose flames for eternity, but if there was one thing my life had done to me, it left me without emotions. At least that’s what I thought.”

“You learned differently?

“Well, I used to get excited about stuff. Hurting people. Killing people. Getting more money. But every time—and I mean every time—whatever it made me feel faded fast. Sometimes, like when I would add a million dollars to my net worth, it excited me for like ten minutes. But what finally got to me, I think, was that my
madre
told me she prayed for me every day. And not just once a day. Most of every day. Can you imagine?”

“So prayer worked?”

“You know, I never thought of it that way—that the prayer itself worked. I mean, I know it did, now that I look back on it, but at the time it was just that she was doing it. You know what I’m saying? See the difference?”

“I guess, sure.”

“I started having trouble sleeping, and that was new for me, even after all the stuff I had done, all the people I hurt, killed, everything. But now, because my mom is praying for me, I can’t sleep. Even my cellmate asked me what was wrong. I told him to mind his own business, but not quite with those words.”

Pascual fell silent again. Boone watched him expectantly. “So who do you talk to? What do you do?”

Pascual pulled out his phone. “Better turn this on,” he said. “I’ve been out of reach too long. Yeah, see, all kinds of messages from the Wolf.”

“The Wolf?”

“Don’t you know any Spanish, man? What do you think
lobo
means? Let’s get headed back. I gotta call him anyway.”

Pascual assured Villalobos that he was all right and would be back soon, but he used such foul language that Boone was surprised. When Pascual clapped the phone shut, he said, “Sorry about that. I hate it, but I got to keep up the image or all this falls apart. I start talkin’ like a civilian overnight and everybody’s gonna know something’s up.”

“So you’ve kept him completely in the dark?”

“You kiddin’? One thing in our world, bro, is that we show no sign of weakness, you know? This would be the ultimate. I would be history.”

“I want to hear the rest of your story, PC,” Boone said as they got back into the car. “But I need to show you the phones they put together for this operation.”

“We got plenty of time for that,” Candelario said. “This thing I’m planning is still a ways off.”

“How long?”

“I’m looking at January 6.”

“Kings’ Holy Day,” Boone said.

“
Bueno.
You’ve done your homework,
hombre
. Nobody gonna suspect anything going down on a day that’s sacred to the Latin Kings. ’Specially Jazzy. I think I can get all the top guys together with the Outfit guys. That’s when I need your fancy phone.”

After dropping Pascual Candelario off near where he picked him up, Boone headed back home, careful to be sure he wasn’t being tailed. Jack called as soon as PC was out of the car.

“You want me to debrief you guys tonight?” Boone said. “While it’s fresh?”

“No. We got it all down. Get some rest. Come in about one tomorrow afternoon and we can talk then.”

Boone also found three texts from Haeley, the last one saying that she had to finally get to bed but pleading with him to leave her a message that everything went all right. He texted her back,
Heading home. See you this afternoon.

Boone slept like a stone and awoke with an eagerness to see Candelario again. He didn’t feel he had really connected with the man yet, but he had been impressed by his intellect and how forthcoming he was. Mostly, Boone wanted to hear the rest of his spiritual journey, but when he had tried to arrange a time to do that, Pascual had put him off the way he had about the phones.

“I’ll let
you
know when, Detective Drake,” he had said before sliding out of the car, making Boone wonder why he had become formal all of a sudden. “And next time it’ll be on my turf.”

“Fair enough, but not here, I hope.”

Pascual had laughed. “Neither of us is that stupid,
amigo
.”

At the office that afternoon, Haeley gave him a look he could only interpret as relief that he was all right. “Where we going tomorrow night?” she said.

“It’s a surprise.”

“I like surprises.”

“Oh, it’s nothing that special,” he said. “Just a new place that looks great.”

Jack and Pete seemed encouraged by what they’d heard the night before, but Fletcher Galloway was clearly not. “I heard the highlights,” he said as the four met in his office. “Your assessment is that the guy has no hidden agenda? We could just bust him as a felon in possession of a deadly weapon and be done with it. He’d be back in Stateville for a long time. That would get one big menace off the streets again.”

Boone shot him a double take. “He also told me he had once added a million dollars to his net worth. Should we check and see whether he reported that on his return and bust him for income tax evasion?”

“Are you being smart with me, Detective?”

“No, sir, Chief. I just hope you were thinking out loud, because I think we want to play this out, don’t we, for the chance to take down the bosses of all the big crime outfits?”

“Of course. But he could have been leading you on. And I can’t say I was amused by your weapons standoff.”

“I didn’t know how else to play that. I sure didn’t want to show weakness.”

“I thought you did the right thing,” Pete Wade said, “if my opinion means anything. But what I was left with at the end of the thing was that we may be taking entirely the wrong angle on this. I’ve been going on the notion that we’re going to record him with all these guys, then protect him until he can spill it all before a grand jury, backing it up with the tapes.”