Calumet City (33 page)

"Patti, look, you can’t just…you can’t…’cause you can’t."

Tracy’s Northside fairy-tale life hasn’t prepared her for premeditated murder. Mine has. Seventeen years of ghetto will do that to most people. But I’m not even most people. I turn to Tracy’s mirror and stare right at it. Daring it. Instead of the ghost reflection that never quite forms, there’s…less. The new me.

I check my two speed-loaders, then face her. "Do I look like I can’t?"

Tracy doesn’t answer, but her face votes. She backs to the front door, puts her butt on it and says, "Just think…a minute. Maybe there’s another way."

I wait for the minute. Out of courtesy for the expensive clothes I’m going to ruin and the explaining she’ll have to do when this is over. But by then she’ll have the story and when it gets messy in the morning, she’ll be the only one with all the answers.

She exhales through lips shaped to kiss or whistle, but does neither. "War correspondent. Not an accessory. Piece of cake; I’m in."

I hear a silent drummer rim-shot the punch line.

Being a dumbshit, I’d just decided that her "you just can’t" was honest concern for me. "War correspondent" is much better. The Pink Panther’s in this on her own, hence her life is only half my responsibility. Now I can focus on Delmont Chukut, Army Ranger, bail enforcement officer, drug smuggler, kidnapper, and probably killer.

   The air’s electric. Lake Michigan is churned up in whitecaps and splashing over the buttresses of Lake Shore Drive. I’m worried and so is Tracy as we approach Diversey Harbor from its western edge. The harbor is inland three hundred feet from the lake and shaped like a pork chop. To the north, south, and west is leafy Lincoln Park, beyond that it’s all high-rise city.

From the passenger seat of Tracy’s Jaguar I count fifteen long piers bobbing with chop and hundreds of boats. Tracy says there’s a yacht club too. She points north toward the parking lot she says we’ll use just as the lot materializes downhill at the fat end of the pork chop. The lot faces a low, bridged channel that tunnels under Lake Shore Drive to the lake. The channel has rough water and no boats in it.

I glance at the sky out over the lake. Tracy wasn’t lying about the storm coming. She adds that these yacht clubbers are her people, hers and Mary Kate’s, although I don’t recall seeing pictures of them above Tracy’s refrigerator. She also says that the houseboat is unusual; one of only two in a harbor of five hundred–plus boats. And although she knows everyone and everything, she doesn’t know who owns either one.

We pass by on the north end of the harbor, climb higher out of the park onto the southbound ramp of Lake Shore Drive and make a cop-pass from the slow lane. Tracy points down at the general area of slip E26 and what might be a restored mahogany houseboat midway out on a long pier surrounded by bigger and smaller boats tied down tight in the chop. Tracy says that if a storm weren’t threatening and it weren’t twenty degrees colder than normal, all the piers would be empty. She adds that our approach would’ve been obvious from the deck of any boat still docked at the north end.

Really? Wonder if Delmont missed that or just doesn’t know shit about yachting. One would guess a desert Indian nomad might not; so why pick a one-way-in/out marina if you’ve never seen a boat before? To face a Chicago cop?

We exit Lake Shore Drive at Fullerton, make a U-turn in dense traffic, take the Drive north back to Belmont, then southbound again, rolling slow in Lake Shore Drive’s close lane. Our two passes take twenty minutes. One hour left. No people are moving on the houseboat’s deck, if it’s the right boat. Delmont said he might have someone he wanted me to meet—someone who’s got to be part of his scam angle, if that’s what this is. And I still haven’t figured who.

Since we have no other way to do this, we pull off the Drive, make two right turns and a veer into the park that buffers the harbor on three sides. Instantly we’re out of city and driving through an oil painting:

Leaves gust across the windshield, bits of green mixed with fallen red and brown. Tracy slows and drops her window. The Jaguar fills with air unpickled by fried animal fat, exhaust, and four-inch speakers cranked past their limits. A damn shame people in the ghetto don’t get to see and smell this. We’ve got parks, some on the lake, but you need an army to walk through them.

I know John has seen this park, or one like it. He and his mom have strolled through the leaves and fed the birds, and now he does the same with his girlfriend, pointing at things his mom showed him and laughing at the memories. I know this in my bones and lean back. The butt of my Smith catches a rib and I adjust it the way a civilian would their pager. John’s mom wouldn’t have a pistol; she’d have a paintbrush or a harmonica. And she’d be nice all the time. And never murder anyone.

Tracy pulls off the boulevard and into the farthest corner of the harbor’s parking lot. The oil painting quits; my heart adds rate. She points and says her friend’s cruiser is over there in F21, buttoned up one pier south of Delmont Chukut’s houseboat. From here, I can’t see either one in the bobbing congestion; just boat tops and gulls and dark water pushing in from the lake. Tracy looks at me, takes a deep breath that flexes her neck, then exits the driver’s side. Have to wonder about her; she’s taking risks for her story that I wouldn’t.

I climb over the console into the driver’s seat. Our plan is risky but simple: Delmont doesn’t know her, so she’ll recon his houseboat by walking down his pier to a yacht just past him, a yacht that she’ll pretend is hers. She’ll do a bit of fiddling—securing it for the storm—then return to tell me what I’m going to face when I approach Delmont directly and alone. While she’s doing the recon, I’ll sneak to the next pier and her friend’s boat, close enough to watch and maybe act as backup if Delmont Chukut gets ugly.

It’s not a good plan and we both know it, but if Tracy’s careful and lucky we might make it work. If she isn’t, Tracy’s a strong swimmer and that’s Plan B; cold, congested water will be her escape route should Delmont somehow decide she’s part of this and not a civilian boat owner.

Through the Jag’s windshield I watch her walk the almost-empty lot downhill to the water and the security gate fronting Delmont’s pier. At the gate Tracy punches the keypad using a master code given her by the commodore so long ago she can’t remember why. I glance ahead of her out on the pier. Delmont’s "someone you should meet" echoes in my head.

What if it’s not a scam partner?

The breath catches in my throat. Jesus Christ—

What if it’s Roland Ganz?
All his divine insanity on that houseboat? I lever the door to yell but Tracy’s already past the gate and walking the pier. My heart starts to ramp; how the fuck did I miss the obvious? A gust stumbles her off balance. She’ll never see that psychopath coming. Tracy grabs her cap and steadies with a piling. The wind quits and she balance-walks to the end of the pier, hesitates with her back to the houseboat, then boards a cruiser bobbing bow-first opposite the
Schofield’s Too
.

Shit, she’s trapped. And it’s too late to abort.

Go with the plan; make it work. I drive the lot to the pier with her friend’s cruiser, park between two SUVs—neither one dented or the right color—and run to my gate.
Please, no Roland near Tracy. Please
. The wind’s directly in my face and the concrete’s littered with wrinkled, slippery-green Tootsie Rolls. Beyond them are fifty geese honking in the water. The pier’s security gate won’t unlock—I’m in the open, obvious as hell to any Delmont accomplice, and I’ve forgotten the code. The lock’s too good to jimmy. The geese keep honking, telling each other and anyone else that I’m here. My backup for Tracy is toast. Even in a yuppie disguise I can’t loiter…. I pat my pockets, showy, then pat them again. I make fists, pump them in more frustration, then turn to run back to the car and locate a lost code I’m too stupid to remember. A man yells from the piers. I twist back to draw, but miss the Smith’s grip covered by a serape I don’t ever wear. He’s waving from the water side of the now-open gate. I run back, say, "Thanks so much" without stopping, and run the lurching pier toward the cruiser. The pier bucks, my feet tangle, but I don’t fall. The gate man has to be staring but I don’t look back and hope I pick the right boat. And hope it’s empty. And hope to God that Roland Ganz doesn’t already have Tracy.

Slip F21 is full of tall, bobbing white-on-white fiberglass, maybe thirty feet long, open deck with a cabin in the center. I jump on, don’t fall, and the cabin door’s locked. I duck, hoping I look like I went inside. Quick breath, then peek around the cabin’s edge into a mishmash of wind and bobbing ships. I can’t see Tracy. She’s wearing red; she should be easy to see if she’s okay—
BOOM
. Lightning drills into the lake.
BOOM
. The second thunderclap almost puts me in the water. I check for Tracy, don’t see her, then the sky again. A twenty-mile line of lightning crosshatches the sky. Tracy said this was the second storm Tim the pilot was sweating; one wide enough to blanket the whole city.

A siren wails. Still no Tracy in a boat or on her pier. Not a cop siren, the old Civil Defense warning. In Chicago, that almost always means
test,
not tornadoes, but no one would be testing on Sunday afternoon in this neighborhood. I 360 for a funnel cloud and don’t see any. Could be it’s for the front coming in, telling idiot boaters to make for the harbor, or people in the park to seek shelter before it’s too late. A flash of red between the boats on Tracy’s pier. Then more red and moving fast. It’s Tracy running full out, way too fast for the footing.

Roland Ganz
.

I fan to fire behind her. Fifty boats bob and block any shot. I jump to the pier but slip, aim and—
Shit,
lost her.
Wait:
Boat…space…boat…space…red.
Red,
there she is, running again. Boat…space…boat…
Red
—She flattens at the gate. Fighting it. I aim two-handed and know it’s Roland Ganz.
Die, you motherfucker.
Tracy fights the gate open and bolts through. Roland doesn’t claw behind her. I sprint my pier, trying to watch her and not be bucked into the water. Tracy’s into the parking lot and still running. I can fire six fast and scare—She and I reach both sides of my gate at the same moment. Her eyes match my heart rate. I get through, push her behind the Jag’s fender, and twist to kill Roland Ganz and Delmont Chukut—

From behind me she yells,
"Maniacs—"
the rest is buried in thunder.

I aim at her gate and all things in between. My heart’s in my throat.
C’mon, motherfucker—

Tracy’s voice goes shallow, "Cut to pieces," then she vomits. The wind stiffens and rushes past me. The siren wails again. Tracy pants and stammers, "God almighty."

C’mon, Roland, right now—

"On…on the deck. Blood—God, everywhere."

Nobody charges. Heart rate. Heart rate. Nobody charges. "
Who,
Tracy? What blood?"

She doesn’t answer.

"Who, Tracy! Who’s chasing you?"

"Was a body. Just a body. Blood. Pieces." Her voice steadies. "Freaked out…I guess."

"You’re alone? You sure?"

"No. Yes, no one’s chasing me."

Her gate’s still shut. I glance at the lake.
A funnel,
south and sucking water into the sky. Swelling like a serpent. We’re too low to tell how far south or which way it’s going. I wide-eye Tracy. "Anyone else on the boat?"

She shakes her head, starts to steady, and sees the funnel.
"Oh my God."

"Gimme the gate code." She doesn’t; I grab at her but miss. "The code, give it to me."

She’s focused on the funnel draining Lake Michigan into the sky. I slap at her hands and step between her and everything else.
"Give-me-the-code."

"Right, right," and she mumbles it.

The siren, wind, and the funnel are emptying what few people were on their boats. I don’t hide my pistol and run to Delmont’s gate. Lightning cracks again; thunder pounds right behind it. Lincoln Park and Diversey Harbor are about to get their asses kicked. I make the gate, fight it open, and sprint the pier trying to avoid power cords and water hoses.

Tracy could be wrong. Roland may be waiting on that boat.

That slows me a step. And what if the dead man’s not Delmont Chukut? He could be waiting too.

Thunder hammers and car alarms go off. I land on a knee, scramble to aim…and there’s the restored houseboat sucked down in its moorings. I step closer. The deck of the
Schofield’s Too
is splattered red-brown like Tracy said.

All over. And body parts. Ragged wounds—a leg torn off above the knee, a foot, a half-shirted torso with a headless neck severed at an angle. A hand still duct-taped to a severed chair arm, another hand with only two fingers. Richey’s body had severed fingers. Butcher-shop surreal.

The cabin door bangs open.

I duck and fire. The
Schofield’s Too
bobs up on a gust. I aim, already squeezing another round at…The cabin’s empty? The door swings shut then open, vanishes down, then up again.
Squeeze
—the cabin has a light on—small cabin, too small to hide a shooter. My feet jump onto the deck. I slide in the blood, trip on a booted foot, and smash shoulder-first into the outside of the cabin. The door jerks open next to me and I try to shoot it.

My finger jams on the trigger guard. A strip of red flashes on my left; Tracy’s five boats down and crouching on the pier. I kick a deck chair past the door and draw no fire, suck big air, and rush in low: Big shadow on the left; I twist at it, stumble, and gun-barrel the corners. My knee buckles and I fan again. No shooters. I rush past and slam my back into the wall facing the door I just entered.

It’s a slaughterhouse inside too. He…they…it…did the torture in here, the pieces tossed out onto the deck as they went about it. Reveled in it. The blood splashes are still screaming. I can smell the lust, taste the copper. This isn’t human, it’s….

Thunder pounds the boat and water. Roland the devil. The son of a bitch is always ahead of me. Always—