Trigger City (13 page)

The place was filling up as people came out of shops to see what the commotion was about. I crashed into a woman and sent her and a half-dozen bags flying in all directions. I didn't stop to help her.

I just kept running, climbing, frantic, out of my mind, no destination, running, climbing, thinking
Too crowded to draw your gun…why are the cops taking so long?…he's gaining ground…don't look back, keep going, faster….
My lungs were fire and my thighs were rubber and I could feel myself slowing but I pressed on.

I reached Level 6 and collapsed against a pillar to the right of the escalator, my chest heaving. I realized I was still clutching my book.

Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang….
He was coming fast up the final escalator. I couldn't run anymore. I got into a crouch, held the book like a shield, and turned so my left shoulder was facing the escalator.

From the legs, Dudgeon. From the legs….

He hit the metal landing at the top of the escalator and I tossed the book at his face and he raised his hands to protect his face. His hands were empty. I sprung upright, using all the remaining strength in my legs. My left shoulder slammed into his chest in an upward trajectory, knocked him off-balance. His arms flailed at the air and he started to fall backward down the escalator. But as he twisted his torso to try and right himself, he fell against the handrail and flipped over.

I lurched toward the railing and grabbed handfuls of air.

He fell six stories with nothing along the way to break his fall. There was a terrible popping sound as his head hit the marble floor and burst open like a watermelon.

O
kay, tell me again.
What exactly did the man say to you in the parking garage?”

“He said, ‘Ray Dudgeon. You're coming with me.' He had a knife in his hand.”

I'd already told it twice. My story was: I'd stopped at the mall to grab a sandwich and maybe do a little shopping. I'd decided to buy a book, picked up a coffee for the road, and then I'd been confronted on the way back to my car. I saw no reason to say anything about my visit to the car rental agency, so I'd left that out.

Now we were going over it a third time.

“He menaced you with the knife?”

“Yes, he
menaced
me with the knife.”

“But you had your gun…” The detective gestured to my gun, in an evidence bag on the table.

The interview was being conducted in a Thai restaurant on Level 6 of the shopping mall. The mall had been shut down and sealed off and witnesses were being interviewed in another restaurant on another level.

The restaurant was empty of customers and staff. There were a
bunch of cops milling around. A Latino EMS guy was examining the cut on my left arm. My shirt was off.

“Yes, I had a gun. But I didn't notice the guy until he was right in front of me. I had a book in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. And knives scare the shit out of me.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. Unimpressed.

“I'm telling you, the guy had a knife.”

“Relax. We know. The knife was in a sheath on his belt.”

I nodded at the horizontal cut on the outside of my arm, a few inches above the elbow. “You'll find my blood on it.”

A uniform came into the restaurant, signaled to the detective. The detective looked at me without expression. “Be right back,” he said. He picked up the bag with my gun in it and left.

The EMS guy had flushed the cut with hydrogen peroxide and was dabbing at it with sterile gauze. He said, “You'll need stitches for this. Better go to the hospital when you're done here. I'll put some butterflies on it for now.” A trip to the hospital would mean a three-hour wait in the emergency room. I didn't have time for that.

“Can't you stitch it?”

“They'll do a neater job of it at the hospital. Less scar.”

“Look, these guys may need to take me in, it could be a long time. Don't worry about making it neat, just stitch it good so it won't open up.” I leaned in close, added, “Fifty bucks.”

The EMS guy stiffened. “I'm a professional, have some respect.”

“Hey, no offense. I'm just trying to get it done. Please?”

He sighed and rustled around in his tackle box. “I don't want to hear complaints if it leaves a ridge.”

“Thanks.”

I lit a cigarette and smoked while the EMS guy stitched my arm. Smoking wasn't allowed in the mall. Under the circumstances, I figured the chances of getting busted for it were slim. The cops had given me coffee and I used the ceramic mug as an ashtray.

The detective returned along with another cop in a brown suit. The detective said, “This is Captain Samberch.”

Captain.
CPD captains don't normally hang out at crime scenes. Crime scenes are populated by officers and detectives and sergeants, and an occasional lieutenant if the stiff is someone really important or if the case looks like a heater. But a captain?

Samberch said, “The famous Ray Dudgeon. Chicago's own Goo-Goo private eye.” Goo-Goo comes from
good government.
It's a dismissive term for a government reformer, or any foolish idealist who thinks he can clean up public corruption. But Samberch said it without any real edge.

I dragged on my cigarette, said, “Yeah, I was thinking of adding it to my business cards. That a good idea?”

Samberch chuckled, pulled up a chair. “And you can put it in red neon in your window, above a big flashing eye.” Still no edge. Just friendly teasing. Just a couple of guys, shooting the shit. He signaled to a cop near the bar and the cop brought a couple fresh mugs of coffee. Samberch reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a flask, and unscrewed the top. It was brushed stainless steel like Mike Angelo's flask, but Mike's was a lot bigger. Then again, Mike was a lot bigger than Samberch, rank notwithstanding.

Samberch held the flask over my coffee mug. “A little Irish?”

I nodded. “Much obliged, Captain.”

He poured a good double shot into my coffee, screwed the top back on the flask, and returned it to his pocket. I drank some, nodded my thanks to him. I was still feeling shaky and sick from the postadrena-line hangover, and it felt good going down.

He looked wistfully at his own mug, shrugged. “On duty,” he said by way of explanation.

The EMS guy was done stitching my arm. He put a strip of gauze over his handiwork and taped it in place, packed up his tackle box.

“That'll hold.”

“Thanks, man,” I said. He left and I buttoned my shirt. Now it was just Captain Samberch and the detective whose name I'd forgotten. And me. I drank some more boozy coffee. Lit a new cigarette.

Samberch spoke first. “Detective Oliva brought me up to speed on
your statement. We're downloading video from the building's security system. You have any idea how many security cameras there are in a place like this?”

“Lots?”

“Good guess. So it's taking a while. But I think we'll find that you're telling it straight.” He offered a reassuring smile. “We've interviewed most of the witnesses and they tell it like you told it. I mean with all the contradictions and inconsistencies that you get from eyewitnesses. So far, they all say he was the aggressor, you ran, you called for police. Some say he had a knife, some say no. Some say he had a gun. One guy swears he had a hammer. You know how it is.”

I did know how it was. What I didn't know was why Captain Samberch was being so collegial. “Will I get my gun back?”

“It's being tested now. Doesn't smell like it's been fired and nobody was shot. You may get it back when we're done, if it tests clean.” He sipped some coffee. “But I'm curious why you didn't use it, if your life was in imminent danger. I would've shot the guy.”

“I was just asking him about that, Captain,” said Detective Oliva.

I said, “The thing is, we were too close at first and my hands were occupied. In retrospect, after I threw the coffee on him and put some distance between us, I should've turned and drawn my gun. But I thought I could get away. Thought I could get out to Michigan. I didn't think he'd chase me through a crowded mall. He did.” Samberch watched my eyes intently as I spoke and I didn't look away. “And then there were just too many civilians in the way so I couldn't draw on him, couldn't risk it. Not only was my gun not fired, it never even cleared leather.”

Samberch nodded. “Makes sense,” he said. “But you should've taken him out in the garage.”

“Yeah, I said that. It was a mistake.”

“Would you say that you panicked?” Trick question. For lethal force to be justified, you must be in reasonable fear for your life. But if you admit to panic, you can't claim that you were reasonable.

“No, I didn't panic. I just tried to find a way out where nobody gets hurt. Unfortunately, he pressed me into a corner by giving chase, until I had no options.”

Truth is, I panicked.

He nodded again. “Very good. A lot of people in this town would love to see you busted,” he said.

“So I've gathered.”

“I'm not one of them. And neither is Detective Oliva.”

“Thank you,” I said, “I appreciate that.”

“Okay. Tell me what you know about the dead guy.”

“I don't know anything about the dead guy.”

“Come on, Dudgeon. We're helping you out here. Now you have to help us out.”

“Believe me, I'd love to know who he was. But I have no idea.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Samberch sighed, “Then you are in some serious shit, my Goo-Goo friend.” I shrugged my lack of understanding to him. He said, “Because the guy with his brains splattered all over the floor out there isn't just some thug.”

“You know who he is?”

“I don't know who he is. I know
what
he is.” He snapped his fingers and got the attention of a uniform who brought a couple of evidence bags to the table. In one bag was the knife in a leather belt sheath. In the other bag was a diving watch.

Samberch said, “See, we have a problem with your dead guy. First, he had no wallet on him, no ID, nothing. Now that's not so unusual. If he came here to ice you, he'd leave his ID at home in case something went wrong, right?”

“Sure,” I said.

“But then we look at his clothes. No manufacturer's labels. None. Not even laundry marks.”

“So he cut the tags off.”

“Wrong. They never had tags to begin with. Custom made, no tags,
no manufacturer's mark. Same with his shoes. Even his belt.” Samberch opened a bag and brought out the dead man's diving watch, handed it to me. “Look at that.”

It was a high-quality watch with substantial weight, precision fit and finish. Unidirectional ratcheted bezel and automatic movement. I examined the face, the crown, turned the watch over and inspected the back. A very high-quality watch, but not a mark on it to identify the manufacturer. Sterile.

I'd never seen a sterile watch but I'd read about them in books. My blood ran cold and the room began to close in on me.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“You got it. And it's the same thing with the knife.” Samberch took the watch and put it back in the bag, drank some coffee. “Only time I've seen a watch like that was Vietnam. Standard issue to black-ops CIA guys. Right?”

“Yeah, but not just CIA. From what I've read, all sorts of covert intelligence guys get them. And not just American.”

“Guy have a foreign accent?”

“No. Sounded like a TV anchorman. Had that nondescript, nonregional American accent.”

“So not a Chicago guy, either.”

“Not unless he purposely got rid of the accent.”

“You can understand how little pleased I am about this,” said Samberch, tapping the evidence bag with his index finger.

I met his eyes. “Doesn't please me a great deal, either.”

“I'm sure.”

“Did he have any identifying scars or tattoos?”

“From the neck up there's not a lot we can say, for obvious reasons. His body is clean. We'll run his prints, see if we get a hit. We'll get his face from the security video. In the meantime, I suggest you give some thought to motive. You may not know who he is but you can make a list—members of your fan club who might send a guy like this.”

I considered asking him if he wanted me to include city employ
ees—both current and those serving time—on my list, but I decided to keep my trap shut. We'd just met, but so far I liked Samberch and I figured him for a right guy. There was no percentage in acting like a wiseass.

Someone behind me caught the captain's attention. He stood and walked over to the bar area, where a laptop computer had been set up. I started to follow but he held his hand up.

“Stay seated, Dudgeon. You don't get to see this.”

So I waited while Samberch and Oliva and a bunch of other cops watched various streams of security video on the laptop computer. I drank the rest of my coffee and someone refilled my mug and I drank that, too, and smoked another cigarette, and thought about how I'd screwed up.

The car rental kid didn't know where I'd parked my car, so he couldn't have dropped a dime on me. And no one had followed me from Amy's house to my office. So the dead guy had picked me up when I left my office. When I was busy worrying about Amy's suspicions, busy feeling rejected. Put simply, I'd allowed myself to become distracted and I'd made myself an easy target. Same thing in the garage.

Damn, that was bush league, Dudgeon. A major malfunction. And after lecturing Jill about paying attention to her surroundings? Way to go, man. Way to set an example. You better smarten up, get your head in the game…

I cut the self-flagellation and focused on the facts. The guy who came after me was not some run-of-the-mill hit man. A hit man would've just come from behind and popped a couple of small-caliber bullets into the back of my head. This was different. So I doubted that this guy had anything to do with my past sins. It seemed obvious that his attack was related to the Joan Richmond case, but assuming that the obvious is true can get you in a lot of trouble.

And then there was the nagging feeling that he just wasn't a Hawk River kind of guy. Holborn had warned me that intuition is a fickle guide, which is true. But it's not something to ignore, either. And mine
told me that this guy had a lot more in common with those two maybe-DHS guys than he did with Joseph Grant and Blake Sten.

Samberch and Oliva returned to the table.

Samberch said, “Good thing for you this happened where it did. The whole place was covered. You were never off-camera.”

“So I'm in the clear?”

“Looks that way.”

“Thanks.”

“One thing. What was that at the end, as he was falling…you try to catch him?”

I didn't have an answer.

I said what would make sense to him. “I wanted to question the guy, find out who he was working for.”

He nodded. “Hang tight awhile, we'll see about your gun.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, and Goo-Goo?”

“Yeah?”

“You plan to get chased by guys like that, you ought to give up smoking.” Samberch turned and walked out into the mall.

Oliva handed me my book, said, “Yours?”

“Thanks.”

“It'll keep you occupied while we finish our work.” But he didn't leave, just stood there looking down at me. He gestured toward the book. “My brother's over there.”