At Peace (74 page)

Cal turned fully to Haines. “Last night
she stood in the kitchen in my arms giggling herself stupid. You
think after she’s walked through two years of hell, I get her to
the point of giggling herself stupid, I’m gonna rip that away for
tax evasion, you’re fuckin’
whacked,
” Cal returned and now Haines’s jaw was hard for another
reason, his hands were clenched and his body was solid.

Haines glared at Cal. Cal scowled back.

“Boys,” Sully mumbled, Cal looked away from
Haines and saw Colt and Sully both were on alert.

“Security, vigilance, tails,” Cal declared.
“I’ll keep my gun where I can get it and carry when I’m not with Vi
and the girls.”

“You got a permit to carry concealed?” Sully
asked.

“Man, do you know what my job is? I got a
concealed permit in forty-seven states,” Cal answered.

“Right,” Sully muttered, his eyes slid to
Colt and his lips twitched.

Cal did not find anything funny and his eyes
hit Colt.

“He’s gettin’ impatient and he’s gonna fuck
up. Every man standin’ here knows that. Your job is to make sure he
doesn’t fuck up with Vi, Kate or Keira in his crosshairs.”

“You need to stick to town, not go out on a
job,” Mike put in, losing his bid to get Cal out of Vi’s house he
was changing his tune and Cal’s eyes cut to him.

“Yeah, Mike. Thanks for that head’s up,”
Cal’s sarcasm was obvious and Mike straightened.

“We’re all on the same side here,” Sully
noted as the air around Cal and Haines again grew heavy.

Cal speared Sully with a glance and looked at
Colt.

“You got the gifts or you send them to
Pryor?” he asked.

“Sent an inventory and photos to Pryor. Gifts
were delivered here, they’ve stayed here. They’re in evidence,”
Colt answered.

“I want to see them all. Chronological,” Cal
demanded.

“Why?” Sully asked and Cal looked at him.

“
Do
you know what I do for a living?”

“Security,” Sully answered.

“Stalker sub-specialty,” Colt muttered and
Sully looked at his partner.

“No joke?” Sully whispered.

“No joke,” Colt repeated.

“
Wow,” Sully was still whispering, “I
didn’t know that. We should have brought you in sooner.”

Colt looked at the ceiling. Haines pressed
his lips together. Cal growled.

* * * * *

“You feed the Feds this shit?” Cal asked
Barry. He was sitting in the seat beside Colt’s desk after having
gone through a fuckload of expensive gifts that got chronologically
more expensive, more desperate to make an impression and more
demanding to get a reaction.

“Feds aren’t interested,” Cal heard Barry’s
answer through the phone.

“Not interested?” Cal asked.

“You’re interested. I’m interested. Any
Chicago police officer is interested, they knew Tim or not. The
Feds… no,” Berry answered.

“Nothin’ ties him to this shit,” Cal
surmised.

“I looked into it, Colt looked into it and
nothin’ ties him to that shit. She was still in Chicago, gettin’
visits, maybe they’d care. Harassment isn’t a big deal but they’d
be happy to pin anything on him, it keeps him locked away even a
day longer. But she’s in Indiana gettin’ gifts we can’t pin on him,
they don’t care,” Barry replied. “They want him shut down. They
think they got a lock on that and so they’re focused.”

Cal clenched his teeth. If he heard the
fucking word “focused” one more fucking time he was going to do
bodily harm.

“You suggested protection, Colt’s people
can’t offer it. You got the resources up there to give Vi and the
girls that?” Cal asked.

“She’s out of our jurisdiction,” Pryor
answered.

“What about the Feds?”

“Sorry, man, like I said. They’re not
interested,”

Fuck!
The word exploded in his brain then Cal took a
deep breath and laid it out for Barry.

“You need to keep him busy, Pryor, his mind
on other things,” Cal advised. “Shake up his operation. Give him
headaches. Even if you can’t follow through with what you’re doin’
just be a nuisance.”

“How’s that gonna help?” Barry asked.

It wasn’t, Cal knew from the gifts it wasn’t
going to stop Hart doing what he was doing.

Daniel Hart was like Kenzie Elise. He was
used to getting what he wanted just wanting it. The gifts he’d been
sending, the shake up in the schedule since Vi moved, the
escalation of attention were not good signs. Colt knew it and was
doing what he could do. It wasn’t right he didn’t share with Cal
not only considering what Vi was to Cal but what Cal did for a
living, but he was doing all the right things, including making it
so Vi could live her life and only worry about all the shit that
was in it, not adding anything extra. The fact that she was
protected, not even receiving the gifts, and Cal had no doubt Hart
knew she wasn’t, was probably driving Hart up the wall. He couldn’t
get close, not with a restraining order and a cop living on Vi’s
street. He wasn’t stupid and wouldn’t take that chance. Colt would
take him down in a second. Hart could only hope Colt would mess up,
miss a delivery, she’d get her diamonds and he’d get his reaction.
Something Hart needed to function and something Colt had kept from
him.

What Cal had to find was Hart’s Marco. Marco
held Kenzie’s strings and yanked them when she got out of line. No
man was an island. Not even the top of the heap in a crime
syndicate. Hart had buyers, sellers, suppliers, employees – people
he had to keep happy. Focusing on the mother of two daughters in
Indiana when his focus should be on business, business that was all
of a sudden getting a shakedown from the cops, would not make any
of those people happy.

And then Sal could do his work which would
make all those people really not happy and hopefully end in Daniel
Hart being dead.

That was Cal’s plan. It was shit but at least
it was a plan.

“Feds makin’ deals, cops on his ass, his
attention is scattered, his operation goes into disarray someone’s
gonna notice and he’s gonna have to make a choice. He chooses Vi,
his operation falls apart, people get pissed, he’s fucked. He
doesn’t choose Vi, shifts his attention away, gets with the
program, she’s free. Either way, she wins,” Cal explained.

“You’re askin’ me to put a shitload of boys
in danger. This guy does not like to be messed with,” Barry
replied.

“I’m askin’ you to serve and protect. Tim did
it and died doin’ it,” Cal reminded him.

Barry was silent and when he spoke his voice
low and pissed.

“I met you, I liked you but don’t fuckin’ use
the Tim card on me,” he warned. “You didn’t know him, you don’t get
that card.”

“His daughters go to bed under the same roof
as me. I know him, Barry,” Cal said quietly. “You’ve seen the waste
Hart laid to those girls’ lives but I’m cleanin’ it up and you
think I won’t use that card for them, you’re fuckin’ crazy.”

Barry was silent again, it lasted longer this
time then he bit out, “We’ll do what we can.”

Cal didn’t respond.

Barry spoke again, “You tellin’ me you’re
livin’ with Vi and the girls?”

“Yeah,” Cal answered.

Cal heard movement on the phone and he knew
it was Barry seeking privacy when he said, “I checked you out.”

Cal pulled in breath and closed his eyes.

“Your line clean?” Barry asked.

Cal opened his eyes. “I’m on Colt’s phone
at the Station.”

“You talk to him, you do it on a clean line,”
Barry advised and Cal was surprised.

“He’s family,” Cal replied.

“You talk to him, you do it on a clean line,”
Barry repeated.

“Barry –”

“I don’t wanna know,” Barry cut him off.

“You know,” Cal said again quietly and heard
Barry sigh.

“Yeah, I know.”

“That shit doesn’t blow back on me,” Cal
warned.

“We didn’t have this conversation,” Barry
stated.

“Good,” Cal replied.

“Jesus. All the luck, Vi moves away from that
fuckface and moves next door to a security specialist with mafia
ties. Fuck me,” Barry muttered.

“She doesn’t seem real lucky to me,” Cal
remarked.

“
Maybe her luck has changed,” Barry
returned. “I gotta go. I got a Captain to try to convince to
commence operation shakedown on a guy who’s whacked one of his
detectives and put two others in the hospital, one’s still a
vegetable three years down the line. Lucky for you, Vi and those
girls, he misses Tim’s shortstop on our softball team.”

“Tim good?” Cal asked.

“The best,” Barry answered.

“I’ll bet,” Cal murmured.

Barry was silent again. Then he whispered,
“Keep her safe.”

“You got it,” Cal promised.

Barry disconnected and Cal put down the
phone.

Colt rounded Cal’s chair and sat in his
own.

“Pryor in line with your plan?” Colt asked
and Cal looked at him.

“Yeah,” Cal answered.

Colt studied Cal then asked, “We good?”

Cal studied Colt then asked back, “I tried to
take on Denny Lowe without keepin’ you in the loop, would you be
good with me?”

Colt’s face went hard. “Not the same thing
and you know it, Cal.”

“Explain to me how.”

“You were there when we had our
conversation.”

Cal leaned into his friend. “Fuck, Colt,
just you roundin’ my fuckin’ house to
have
that conversation meant you knew.”

Colt held Cal’s stare and then his jaw
clenched.

“I stepped out for two and half months,
leavin’ her alone,” Cal reminded him.

“You’re in that line of work, Cal. You knew
what was goin’ down and where it was gonna go. You stepped out for
a reason. You can’t tell me you weren’t workin’ through some shit,”
Colt returned.

“I didn’t have the intel, Colt, you kept it
from me. I was workin’ through some shit but I woulda worked
through it next door to her fuckin’ house and in the know about the
escalation of attention,” Cal shot back.

“We had our eye on her and the girls,” Colt
informed him.

“That be good enough for you, someone was
takin’ pictures of Feb and Jack?” Cal asked.

“Like I said, I made a call. You didn’t like
it but nothin’ I can do to change it. We knew what was goin’ on and
we kept our shit sharp and she’s good. Pryor knew all about it and
her brother did too and they still did what they thought they had
to do so that isn’t on me. You’re welcome to stay pissed at me,
man, but it’s a waste of energy. It’s done.”

This was all true and it pissed him off.

Cal stood and looked down at Colt. “Now
are you assured of my
focus?
”

Colt visibly bit back a smile. “Yeah.”

“Thrilled, man,” Cal growled and turned to
the stairs.

“This is over, I’ll get Feb to make you one
of her frittatas,” Colt called after him.

“Can’t wait,” Cal called back but didn’t turn
as he took the stairs.

This was true too but he wasn’t giving Colt
that. He’d heard about Feb’s frittatas. According to her brother
Morrie they were heaven in the form of eggs.

They might be good but Cal would bet a
thousand bucks that Vi’s seafood shit was better.

* * * * *

Cal was nearly home when his cell rang. He
looked at the display and it said “unknown caller”.

He flipped it open and put it to his ear.

“Yo.”

“You’re gettin’ a call in ten minutes at your
office,” a man’s voice said then disconnected.

Fucking Sal. Always the drama.

He turned away from home and toward his
office. By the time he unlocked the door the phone on Lindy’s desk
was ringing. He picked it up and put it to his ear.

“Yo.”

“
Cal,
figlio
,” Sal said in his ear and Cal could hear the smile in his
voice.

“Sal,” Cal greeted, not smiling.

“I hear you were in Chicago. Saw Vinnie,
Theresa. No visit for me?”

“It wasn’t a social call,” Cal told him and
Sal was quiet.

Then he said, “Yeah, bad business. Vinnie
told me.”

Cal was impatient. “Listen, I got a woman at
home, she’s got daughters and someone’s takin’ snapshots and
sendin’ them to cops. I don’t wanna be in the office. I wanna be
home. You have a good talk with Vinnie?”

“We talked but I think you need to come up to
Chicago. We’ll have a sit down,” Sal said.

There it was. Sal was in the mood to be
persuasive.

“
Sal, respect, goes without saying,” Cal
told him. “But I got a woman at home whose got daughters and
someone’s takin’ snapshots, sendin’ gifts and puttin’ bullets in
the brains of the men in her life. The man who’s ordering that shit
is in Chicago. I don’t wanna be in Chicago, I don’t wanna be away
from her and I don’t want
her
to
be in Chicago. If you talked to Vinnie then we don’t need a sit
down.”

“I can see why this would make you impatient
but there are things to discuss,” Sal countered.

“You want to discuss, I go this alone,” Cal
returned and Sal let out a very loud sigh.

“
We’re talkin’ a cop’s wife here,
figlio
,” Sal
noted.

“We’re talkin’ my woman here, Sal. Hart sent
a picture. I’m next,” Cal told him.

“How ‘bout this? I send a message to Hart,
explain you’re family and that he should move on,” Sal
suggested.

“
How ‘bout this?” Cal returned. “This guy
isn’t family. This guy is a mean motherfucker who clawed his way to
the top and took down everything that got in his way. He doesn’t
get family. He doesn’t get respect. He doesn’t get anything but
what he takes. He took from you. He took from me. He took from my
family and your family and he took from my woman, who, Sal, cop’s
widow or not, she’s mine now and that means she’s family and you
can’t deny that and he’s
still
takin’ from her. Are you tellin’ me, he did all that,
you’re gonna send this fucker a note?”