by Thomas Laird
When I read his column, just for a moment I thought I was transported back to 1968.
*
Natalie has only two more days left at the hospital. They did her tubes this morning, and it’ll take her a couple of days at least to recover enough to go home and rest up while she tries to deal with a newborn. I’ll take off a week for vacation to help her, and my mother will of course be present to keep us all from killing each other. Maggie and Leigh are handfuls on their own. My oldest, Mary, is staying on with her husband for another week, and Mike has offered his help too. So there is enough manpower around the house.
And I like it that we’re all under one roof while the Russian and his female gunslinger are still on the loose. It’ll be easier to keep an eye on everyone this way. But it’ll only last a week, I remember, and if we don’t nab those two by the middle of July…
I’ll have to worry about all of it later.
I watch Mike mow our sparse lawn with the power mower. He does a very precise job. He uses the box method to cut the grass, smaller and smaller boxes. It doesn’t take him long.
Then he sits down next to me in the backyard on one of our lawn chairs that hasn’t yet collapsed. Natalie tells me to stop buying cheap lawn furniture, and now I see why she’s right. Cheap shit bends, and then it collapses, and then your neighbors can have a good laugh when they see you hit the ground unexpectedly.
“You won’t change your mind,” I say as we watch the blood red sun go down in the west. It has been another scorching day in this merciless, drought-ridden summer.
He takes a long drink from his tall iced tea.
“No. I don’t think so, Pa. I want to be a Ranger.”
“They’re the elite of the elite. It was hard to tell which of them was crazier in Vietnam—the Rangers or the Greenies.”
“The Green Berets?”
“Yeah. They kept to themselves. I ran into a few of them in Saigon on R and R. But they stayed off unto themselves. Very clique-ish fellows, the Rangers and the Greenies both.”
“I want to do something that matters, like I told you.”
“If you have to join, why not join Special Services? Play in a rock band for the guys’ morale. Scope out some titty bars.”
“Very funny.”
“I thought it was a great idea, Mike. Make love, not war.”
“I leave for basic on September 1st, Pa.”
“That seems awfully soon.”
“Less than two months.”
“Maybe by the time you’re trained, it’ll all be over in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
“No, Michael, but I wish I did…So there’s no sense in trying to point out—“
“No. There’s no sense. I’ve made up my mind.”
“Don’t get shot.”
He laughs.
“That’s your only advice?”
“They’ll explain about picking up STD’s and crotch rot and AIDS, I assume.”
“I suppose.”
“I told you I couldn’t afford to lose any of you. I wasn’t bullshitting, Michael.”
“I know, Dad. I intend to survive…And I intend to not get shot too.”
We watch the sun make its break to the horizon in the west, and then the darkness wins out, and we go back inside the house.
*
Mary looks like my first wife, her mother, Erin. Erin died of cancer, but I have a near-duplicate of her standing before me. Natalie is still a few days away from coming home, and everyone is here, awaiting her arrival with the arrival of our newest member, James Manion. Mary’s husband, George, is an MD doing his residency at Rush Hospital in the Loop. Mary is finishing medical school at Northwestern. She begins her internship next winter.
We have been very lucky with the kids so far. Mary and Mike have turned out very well. The five and six year olds, Maggie and Leigh, are tiny sweethearts. Unlike girls their age, they never scream at each other or at anyone else. I think it’s Natalie’s military background that helped discipline them so well—as well as my mother’s influence on them. So my kids are keepers, I’m saying. I have no beefs with any of them yet, which is miraculous when you compare them to other children. No Attention Deficit, no bulimia, no neuroses…We had a few difficult years with Mike regarding his abuse at the hands of a priest, but my son handled it the way he handles everything else. He’s strong, and he’s resolute. When he wants something, he makes it happen.
Mary is a near-twin of Erin, as I said. Same face, same body type. She was always the little princess of my three girls. The little ones, Maggie and Leigh, are more tomboyish. They act like little boys a lot of the time. But their female selves come through strongly, as well. Mary was always very precise and very perfectionist, like her mother. She’s the worrier of my children. She calls to see how I am all the time, and she checks up on Natalie and her young sisters and brother Mike too.
“You look worried, Dad,” she says.
Her dark brown hair is curly, and she has a snagged front tooth that we never quite had straightened. She says she’ll get braces when she has the money. I offer to do it for her, but she won’t have it. She went through college on full scholarship, and she won the same kinds of rides and grants to get her through this very expensive medical school at Northwestern. Her mom was a teacher—that’s where she got her smarts.
“Are you?” she asks again.
I never lie to her.
“I’m worried about this last case. I’m worried these two perps are going to slip away and get out of the country. See, I need closure, because this is my last time at bat.”
“You’re finally going to retire?”
“From where the sun now stands…”
“Chief Joseph.”
“Can’t fool you, Big Girl.”
“I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. But my favorite was Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce—‘I will fight no more forever’…Is that you, Daddy? Are you really quitting?”
“I think so, Mary.”
“You threatened to quit a couple times before.”
“I know. But this time old age is calling the plays.”
“You’re not old.”
“I’ve been in Homicide far longer than most guys. Average duration is ten years. I’ve more than doubled that. Time to call it quits, Big Girl.”
“It’s fine with me. Except that I can’t see you not doing what you’ve been doing since I can remember you doing it.”
I laugh with her. We sit in the living room. The little girls are with my mother in the basement, watching TV. Mike is in his room getting cleaned up in advance of a heavy date. George, Mary’s new husband, is asleep in the spare bedroom in the attic that we use when we’re at overflow around here. I had to install a window air conditioner up there so Mary and George wouldn’t smother.
“It’s time to hang up my spurs. I’m thinking of teaching at the Academy.”
“So you’re not leaving the police altogether.”
“I can’t see you watching Dr. Phil and Oprah every afternoon while Natalie goes off to arrest murderers…No. I’ll have to do something.”
“This animal murdered all those poor people.”
“And another animal was in on it with him, and he’s walking away free to Witness Protection…But that’s confidential, so I can’t say any more about it.”
“I know. I usually don’t ask you about work.”
“Just as well…You’re going to be in a far more positive line of work, Big Girl. Saving lives. Can’t think of a better thing to do.”
“Yeah. There’s that. But it’s scary too. There’s a chance I might screw up and harm someone.”
“I’m betting it’ll never happen.”
“You better be right. Malpractice is a bitch.”
We laugh briefly.
“You still miss Doc, don’t you.”
“I do. Yes.”
“But you’re pretty tight with this Tommy Spencer, aren’t you?”
>
“We’re very close…But Tommy’ll be getting toward the sunset himself pretty soon.”
“I don’t want you to wind up broken down, Pa. You’re way too young for that. And you’ve got three little ones…And someday I might make you a grandfather.”
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
“No,” she laughs. “We can’t possibly have children for a long time. Maybe we won’t. I don’t know yet. We haven’t discussed it…
“Are you mad at Mike, Dad?”
“Not mad, no.”
“Don’t be. You know he’s the best of us, don’t you?”
“I love you all, Mary. I’ve loved you the longest.”
“He’s still the best of us. If he weren’t my little brother I would have had a crush on him. You can’t help but love him, even though he can be too serious, sometimes.”
“You’re the little mother of the three of us. You took care of us when Momma died.”
Mary’s eyes become a bit moist.
“I miss her so much.”
I hold my daughter tight, and then I let her loose.
“I miss her too. And I’ll never stop loving her.”
“You got lucky with Natalie. You got a second chance, Daddy.”
I look at her and I know she’s right. Natalie was my second crack at life. There’s no doubt about it.
There is only one last thing for me to do. I have to find Grodnov and Karin Vonskaya. They are the two blaring remainders written in red on my board in my office. They task me. They make me sleepless at night. They occupy way too much of my thoughts.
Nothing is finished until I hear the keys click in the locks of their cages.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
I pick up Natalie and the baby after 6:00 P.M. tonight. She’s finally got the okay to go home. It’s 10:16 A.M. Almost eight hours to wait. I try to keep busy, looking over the agreement with Hansen that the FBI has written. I don’t see any loopholes that I can use to get at Wade. He looks free, as soon as he testifies against Alexei Grodnov.
Tactical calls at 10:18. It’s Johnny Morrisson, a Tac in Area 14, near Old Town.
“We have a sighting, I think, Jimmy,” Morrisson says over the phone.
“You think?”
“The blond hair is gone. He’s bald now, if it’s him. He’s wearing aviator’s shades, too. But one of our guys passed him on the street. He didn’t cuff him because he’s working undercover, but he got close enough to make Grodnov’s face, without the ponytail. Everybody’s on high alert for this prick, so I’d say your odds are pretty good on this one. The undercover’s staying with him. Looks like the Russian is trying to find himself another ‘chicken’. He’s at Fayette and Washington as we speak.”
I call the FBI. Kelvin says they’re on their way.
Tommy doesn’t use the swirling blue lights or the siren. We don’t want to lose Grodnov in the crowds that pack the streets of Old Town. Old Town is where all the kids and tourists congregate to seek out head shops and weird little cafes and titty bars and so on. It is the Greenwich Village of Chicago—like parts of Clark Street and New Town. It’s the Bohemian-whacko district, as far as the police are concerned. The smell of marijuana is omni-present, I’m saying.
And the lost boys are here, and the lost girls. The runaways and the hookers and the male prostitutes…All this and more. Apparently Grodnov could not resist coming back for another try after almost getting his ass shot off by some Mexican kids a while back.
We arrive at Old Town in twenty minutes with some rather daring wheelman work by Tommy Spencer. He drives because he knows I don’t do high speed pursuits. We get to the corner where Morrisson said Grodnov—the new, clean-shaven Alexei—was last sighted.
Morrisson himself approaches us. There are the two of us and six other plainclothes Homicides. The FBI pulls up just as we get out of the Taurus. Josh Kelvin has a dozen agents with him. None wears the navy blue FBI windbreaker. They’re in jeans and street clothes. Only we Chicago cops are easy to spot with jackets covering our weapons. The FBI guys must be carrying in their waistbands or on their ankles.
Morrisson is about six feet tall and he must weigh about 180. Looks like he keeps fit. He has a full head of hair and must be at least twenty-five years my junior.
“We have Grodnov about a block and a half down the street,” he points and nods.
“Granley, our undercover guy, is keeping him company from a distance. He’s got a handheld…I figure the FBI might want to circle around to the north of him and maybe drive him back toward us,” Morrisson suggests to Kelvin.
Special Agent Kelvin nods affirmatively, and the federals head back to their cars to circle around ahead of the Russian and come back at him from the north, as the Tactical Lieutenant suggested. We will approach from the south and try to sandwich Grodnov between us and the Fibbies.
Six US Marshals show up, now, and Deputy Marshal Juan Vasquez asks if they can come along for the ride.
“Absolutely,” I tell Vasquez.
He’s a deeply brown mestizo , and his rugged, handsome face reminds me of my son, Mike after a long summer out in the sun.
Doc Gibron and I always respected the Marshals far more than their federal brothers because we thought the Marshals were a more effective group of coppers. They weren’t publicity prone—they just hauled bad guys’ asses in, and they did it professionally, without all the media attention and the politics.
All of us begin moving toward the north and toward the last sighting of Grodnov. After two blocks’ hike, Morrisson spots his operative, the guy who’s on Grodnov.
Then I see Grodnov talking to a young male, perhaps seven or eight. The two of them are sitting at a bus stop together. The Tactical is talking to some teenaged girl on the street about a quarter block from the Russian and the kid. The girl is the Tactical’s cover, I’m sure, and I know he’s grabbed a bystander for cover on the street. It’s up to us.
I can see Kelvin and his Federal plainclothesmen heading toward Alexei from the north, about a half block down from Grodnov. They’ll be on him soon because they’re moving quickly.
Grodnov sees them coming, however, and he leaves the kid on the bench at the bus stop and starts pedaling toward us. Then he makes out Spencer and me, so he runs back to the bench and grabs the kid by the tee shirt and hauls him to a standing position. He makes a knife appear at the kid’s throat as we close in on him from both sides. A woman walking by them screams when she sees the knife at the kid’s throat, and then the woman scurries off, and the other pedestrians scatter away from the Russian and his small hostage.
Morrisson gets on his cellphone and calls for the SWATs. It’ll take ten or fifteen minutes before they can arrive here, however. This was supposed to be a simple arrest, and now it has complicated itself into an event.
I walk toward Grodnov. Spencer walks with me. We’re both wearing our vests. Department rules, the vests.
When I get close enough, I see that he is indeed our guy, Alexei. The skull is clean shaven, but he wears a do-rag over some of it, and he’s got those aviator shades on as well.
“Put the knife down. You can’t get away. We’ve got all kinds of company here with us. First thing you do is let the kid go—“
He cuts the boy on the throat lightly, and I hear another scream from a pedestrian who’s close enough to become hysterical. Then, as a few droplets dribble down the boy’s neck, I aim the gun at Grodnov’s forhead.
“Cut him again and I’ll blow your brains out,” I tell him.
Alexei smiles and yanks the kid up in his arms. The only shot I have now is the top of his new chrome dome. It’d have to be a perfect piece of shooting, especially if he starts moving the boy around.
Kelvin’s people all have their weapons aimed at the Russian, but they are apparently allowing me to call the numbers on this play. Perhaps they’re waiting for SWAT. It’s impossible to tell.
“Jimmy. Let me take him,” Spencer whispers.
“Put d
own those guns or I’ll cut off his head, right here on this sidewalk in front of all these nice people.”
“Don’t do it.”
The voice belongs to Special Agent Kelvin.
There are no pedestrians between us and the FBI. Traffic has stopped from both directions, on the sidewalk and on the street too. There are FBI agents in the street, holding the cars back. The cops behind Tommy and me are halting people on foot. So it’s a standoff, with Grodnov and the child right in the middle.
“What’s one more life?” Grodnov smiles. “I will do life no matter if this chicken lives or dies, so what difference does it make?”
“You touch him again and you’ll never make it to the joint,” Tommy tells him.
“Ah, Detective Spencer…I thought that was you with the Lieutenant…I am going to cross this street to the other side. You are going to allow me to do so. But first all your police friends will get out of the street and allow us passage.”
I look over to Kelvin, and then he shrugs. He tells his people to back off out of the street. My heart takes a dive into the lower reaches of my chest. He’s letting this prick walk. Maybe he thinks the SWATs will arrive in time to ventilate Grodnov.
“Don’t let him do it!” I yell at the FBI chief.
“We don’t want another death,” he yells. Then he retreats with his agents to the north end of the block. I turn and signal the cops with us to back off also. Vasquez looks at me.
“Mistake, jefe,” the Marshal says. “Don’t let him call the shots.”
“He’ll kill the kid,” I explain.
“He’ll kill him anyway,” the Deputy says.
“I know,” I reply.
The FBI is out of the street. The traffic is still halted. Grodnov crosses over with the boy clutched close to him, and then he hears the screech of tires. Alexei drops the boy and turns toward the south where the squeal of tires emanated from, and he turns toward the oncoming car as the eight year old boy rolls on the blacktop away from him. The impact sound is the same as it would be if a side of beef were dropped on the pavement from three stories above. It is a nauseating sound, and Grodnov literally flies through the air and lands some thirty feet backward as the auto grinds to a halt and barely misses running him over.
