by Thomas Laird
“Far as I know,” I add, “you aren’t into what Cousin McCaslin’s into. He’s going to tear up another young girl. It’s like what my partner says. How far you want to go for your family?”
The butcher scans both of our faces.
“I want my lawyer.”
So we have to try all three buildings. The first one’s at 112th and Damen. We have a fleet of cops ready to roll, but I want to be there when we find him. I’m taking a big chance that Mary will still be alive, so I have to send out squads to the other two locations. The chances are one of three he’ll be where Doc and I go. But I can’t waste any time. He could have already done Mary by now.
We get out of the cars and all of us, all eight of us, uniforms and Doc and me, proceed to enter the building. I leave three uniforms by the door to the basement apartment, and the rest of us start at the top floor.
I bang on the door at the third floor apartment. An elderly woman, must be eighty, answers. We ask if we can take a look inside. When we encounter her eighty-something husband, he’s about ready to faint. I grab hold of him and walk him into the living room and seat him on the couch, and then I apologize.
We give both of them our regrets. I haven’t heard from the other two groups at the other two sites on my handheld, so we move down the stairs to the second floor. Some thirty-something babe opens up for us. She has a big smile and bigger cleavage only partially hidden by her robe. Doc looks at me and he can’t help grinning. She’s more than willing to let us take a look inside. There are beer cans and wrappers of all kinds lying on the floor and atop the kitchen table. We check the bedroom, and it looks like a tornado has struck, inside, but there’s no boyfriend.
“He just left, half hour ago,” she tells us.
We don’t think the boyfriend was our boy, of course, so we head downstairs to the first floor.
This time a young male, maybe twenty-five or so, opens up, and he’s very hostile.
“The fuck you want?” he threatens us.
He’s Latino, very good looking and well built, as we can see because he’s wearing boxers and a dago tee. He has ripping pecs and huge biceps and jailhouse tats on his arms and on the top of his chest.
We look the place over after Doc threatens to incarcerate his ass for obstruction, and when my partner asks if he’s on probation, the muscle head becomes much more cooperative.
He’s alone. No one else cohabitating.
“You know anything about the tenant in the basement flat?”
“No, man. He only been here for a little while,” he tells us. “Motherfucker keeps to hisself. I never see the dude. He only been here for a few days.”
I show him the picture of Casey McCaslin.
“Yeah, that’s the motherfucker. He look like a bad son of a bitch. You after his ass?”
“You haven’t heard him, lately?” Doc asks.
“It did sound like he was movin’ something around, earlier. Cocksucker woke me up. But then it got quiet again.”
“What’s your name?” Doc asks him.
“Ricardo. Look, I’m on pro, yeah, but I—“
“You need to get dressed and leave the building,” Doc tells him. “Do it quietly, you understand?”
“Is that the motherfucker who killed all them girls?” he queries.
“Just get going. Quick. Please. For your safety.”
“Shit,” he moans, and then he goes into his bedroom.
We leave the first floor, and then I send the uniforms upstairs to clear out the top two apartments. We get all the tenants out in fifteen minutes. I make the call in for the other two teams at the other two locations to come over to us, and then I call in for the SWAT people to come surround the building.
The other two teams arrive within twenty minutes, and SWAT joins all of us ten minutes after that. The apartment building is completely covered, back and front, and by now SWAT is on the roof tops and positioned across the street with a spot where they can target the window in the basement flat.
I have Downtown patch me through to the listed telephone inside that flat, but the line has been disconnected, three weeks ago. I don’t like using a bullhorn because it gets the neighbors nuts, and then we have a city block full of pain in the ass bystanders.
All that’s left is to knock on the door, so I’m elected, by me.
I bang on the door heavily, four times.
“McCaslin! Police! Come on out with your hands over your head, now!”
A boom shatters the silence, and I hit the floor. The blast kicked out a panel of the basement flat door, but it was slightly off to the left. I did manage to catch three or four splinters in my left cheek, however.
I crawl away from the door.
Doc looks at my face.
“Pull them out,” I ask him.
“Jimmy, they’ll make you bleed.”
“Then I’ll just have to bleed,” I reply.
He tugs them out, one at a time, and then he asks a uniform to go get a first aid kit out of his squad car, and the copper returns in a hurry with the kit, and Doc behaves like an experienced MD instead of the PhD he is, and he puts some peroxide on the small wounds and places several band aids on my mug.
“I must look fucking ridiculous,” I say.
“If I’d painted you with that orange shit, you’d look worse and you’d feel a fuck of lot worse, too.”
“He’ll kill her for sure if we go in, if he hasn’t already. I didn’t hear anything but that shot from the canon he’s got in there.”
“Sounded like a large caliber. It isn’t a .22, that’s for certain. Maybe a .38 or a .45.”
“Where’d he get the piece?” I ask. “He’s a blade kind of guy.”
“We’ll have a long talk with his cousin, once we get him out. Jimmy….She probably is dead. You gotta expect the worst, on this one.”
“I know. You’re right. Why the hell did she have to go see that kid when she knew goddam well McCaslin was out there? He was probably waiting on a chance to get inside that Y. I should’ve moved her, Doc. We should’ve put her into witness protection with the feds. I should’ve been more careful with her. This is on me.”
“You made all the right moves, Jimmy. It’s not your fault. She’s young, she’s in love, and all that shit. There was no knowing that she’d walk. You can’t lay this on yourself. That’s very faulty thinking, and you have to stop. It’s now that matters. And you still don’t know for certain that she’s dead.”
The SWAT commander comes up to me. We’re standing out on the snow-covered sidewalk, just outside the basement apartment entrance. I can see the barrel of a sniper’s rifle up on the roof of the three flat across the street. There are armed uniforms with shotguns ringed around the building.
His name is Phil Stephenson. I’ve worked with him before. The good news is that he’s not some John Wayne asshole. He doesn’t like to shoot first and talk later. He waits until it’s the only thing left to do. He was an Army Ranger sniper in the Vietnam War who worked in Operation Phoenix, and he’s won every medal they hand out, including the Medal of Honor. He’s the CPD’s version of Audie Murphy. The guy’s a legend, but you’d never know it to hear him talk. Like Murphy, though, Phil once told me, he can’t get out of the habit of putting a loaded pistol under his pillow every night.
“What do you want to do, Jimmy?” he asks. “You’re the chief, on this one,” he says.
Phil’s a medium sized, unassuming looking guy, lean and hard the way the Rangers always were, when I was over there, but he doesn’t have any features that would set him out in a crowd. Except his eyes. There like a hawk’s, like a predator’s. I’m saying they’re that intense, they’re that piercing, when you look at him. He has a full head of dark brown hair, and no one would mistake him for some Hollywood heart throb. But he’s efficient. I’ve seen him in action before. He and his guys are known for headshots, and when they’re called to shoot, it only takes one.
“I want to wait a while,” I tell him. “He’s go
t a girl inside with him, and I don’t know if she’s still alive, but if she is, I’d like to keep her that way.”
“Sounds right to me,” Phil counters. “Just let me know when you want us to deploy. I figure it’s either the front or the back door. How about you?”
“If we go in, that would have to be the entry. The front window is too small, vertically. He’d nail whoever came through it.”
He nods and walks back to his position, in the gangway between this building and the neighboring structure.
“I’m going to try and talk to him,” I tell Doc.
“He takes another shot, Jimmy, send them in. Don’t hesitate. You hear me?”
I nod.
“But I am coming with you, and there’s no discussion.”
He gives me the hardest look I’ve ever seen him give.
“All right, then. Stay to either side of the hole.”
We walk down the six steps to the door. I jump to the left of the hole McCaslin’s gun made, and Doc stays off to the right of it as far as he can.
“McCaslin. Talk to me. If you shoot again, there’s a fuckin’ army out here that’s going to come visit you on the inside, and they’re not coming to arrest you. They’re coming in to finish you.”
I hear someone moving, inside. I’m thinking we could fire through the door and let him have it now, but I still don’t know where Mary is, and I don’t want a hail of gunfire to kill her along with this piece of shit.
“Everybody has to die, Parisi. What’s wrong with now?”
“They might not execute you,” I tell him. “You might get fifty to life, or maybe you can cop an insanity plea. Tell them about your mommy beating you up, asshole. Free pass to Elgin State. At least it’s life. You really want to die? What about Mary?”
“What about that cunt?” he shouts.
“Is she alive?”
“Come on in and find out. You and Gibron both. Come on in.”
“They have some guys out here who’ll put one in your forehead and who’ll rip the back of your head off, and all that red goo’ll be on the wall behind you. You think that’s some kind of movie ending to your brilliant career? You come out with your hands up, you can sell your story to those L.A. cocksuckers and you’ll be famous. Otherwise, you’ll just be another southside Mick punk, a cheap thief who boosted car parts and copper pipe.”
It goes silent, inside.
“You’ll shoot me if I walk out that door.”
“I’m not an assassin. That’s your job. You come out hands high, you’ll still have that pretty face. You’ll make all the papers. Hell, you’ll be a star, McCaslin.”
Chapter 35
Mary O’Connor, 1981
My nose is filling, so it’s hard to breathe, and the tape over my mouth is getting a little looser, but not loose enough to let the air in. I’m pulling as hard as I can with both hands but the right hand side is beginning to budge, and I can feel some space between my wrist and the bed post. If I don’t get my hand free, I’m going to suffocate, and now the panic sets in. If I don’t choke on my own juice, he’ll kill me before the police can get in here. I knew they were out there when I heard the shot and then I heard him talking to Jimmy. There has to be an army of cops out there by now, but if they don’t get in here soon, it won’t make any difference. He’s going to kill me, with the gun or with that razor sitting on the nightstand, right next to my right hand.
It has to be now. It can’t go on any longer. So I take what air in that I can through my nose, and I concentrate on one big tug with my right hand.
And I have it pulled farther away from the post! I think maybe I can slide my hand down and out of the duct tape, and I struggle to release myself.
I don’t hear McCaslin talking anymore, and there’s no sound from Jimmy and the cops. I’m thinking they’ll try to come through that front door the way they do on TV and in the movies, with one of those battering ram things they use. If they do, he’ll come in here and shoot me. I know he will. Or he’ll cut my throat the way he did those six girls.
My hand is coming down out of the loosened duct tape, but I’m thinking it’s taking way too long. They’re going to hit that door, or maybe the kitchen door, and then he’ll come running in here for me.
The right hand pops free. I reach over to the nightstand to try and get hold of the straight razor, but it looks like I’m just inches too far away to grasp it. Then I concentrate on loosening my left hand, and I pull like it’s a tug of war, and finally the tape starts to give way.
I roll back onto my right and I reach out my hand for that blade, and this time I come up about an inch short.
I hear Parisi talking to McCaslin again, but Casey won’t answer him.
I turn to my left once more, and this time I undo the tape around my head with my free right hand. Now I can finally take in air, and I feel much stronger, So I pull away from that left hand bed post with everything I have left, and the duct tape stretches out some more, and now I’m able to slip my left hand out of the bonds. I can reach the table, now that my hands are free, and I grab hold of the straight razor on the stand and I pull it open and then I slit the tape that holds each foot to the posts at the foot of the bed.
I try to get out of the bed, and I suddenly feel dizzy, but I can finally sit up and then throw my feet onto the floor. I grab my shirt and put it on. My pants are torn to hell, but at least he left me in my panties, and the shirt goes down to my thighs. I don’t know why I’m worried about modesty at this moment, but I had to get some clothes on. I felt weak, naked.
Parisi starts talking to Casey again. He tells him to come out with his hands raised, and McCaslin doesn’t answer him. I’m thinking he’ll come to finish me, that he’s ready to die. He won’t go back to jail, he tells Jimmy.
Then Parisi goes quiet, and I become very afraid. I don’t want to die. There were times, the last few years, that I did want it to be over so that I could get off the streets, but I never really thought I could do it.
They have to be coming for him now, so I have to do something. I want a life. I want Barry. I want to just keep breathing.
My feet start moving all by themselves until I get to the hallway before the door. There’s a hole punched through it, and Casey’s standing back to the side of the opening from the gun blast, and he’s waiting for them to rush inside.
I’m walking barefoot, and there’s thick carpeting, and he hasn’t heard me come up from behind him.
Then he seems to go still, the way you do when you just sense someone is coming up on you, and he whirls around, but I’ve got the razor opened and I raise my hand with the blade in the air and I bring it down fast and I feel the sharp edge bury itself in his throat, and then the blood seems to leap out at me, and I know I’ve caught him deep and that I’ve cut something serious in his throat, and he drops the gun on the carpet and grabs at the hole I’ve made from ear to ear, but the blood seeps heavily through his fingers, and his eyes go wide and then wider, and I see his knees wobble, and then he falls onto them in front of me with what looks like a question on his face. Then he lets go of the wound with both hands and his arms drop to his sides and he falls flat on his face.
The door explodes open, and I scream. Cops come rushing through the doorway and they’re yelling for me to get down on the floor with my hands behind my head, and they keep yelling at me and I keep screaming. But I finally do what they want, and then I’m down on the carpet, my face in the rug.
I hear Jimmy Parisi’s voice in my ear, soothing me, once all the shouting stops, and then he helps me stand up. He throws his leather jacket over my shoulders, and I look down at McCaslin, lying in his pool of blood.
I want to tell Jimmy that I couldn’t think of anything else to do, I didn’t want to kill anybody. I didn’t want to hurt him. But he was going to kill me, I want to tell all these policemen. Some of them have shotguns and some have those rifles you see in war movies, like in the Vietnam War.
I remember the look on McCaslin
’s face when he reached out to try and stop the blood from jumping out of his neck, and I think I’m going to be sick. Then a gigantic wooziness comes across the front of my face and into my eyes, and everything goes absolutely black.
*
I wake up in a hospital bed, and Doc and Jimmy are sitting in folding chairs at the foot.
Jimmy stands up and comes over to me. Then Doc stands up right at the end of the bed. They’re both smiling widely, like I just had a baby or something.
“You were in shock, kid,” Jimmy says.
He grabs hold of my hand and holds on tightly.
“What about—“
“He’s dead, Mary. There was nothing else you could’ve done.”
“I can’t feel sad.”
“You shouldn’t,” Doc says at me.
“He was going to kill me, I know it.”
“You’re right. He would have, but you stopped him. You did the right thing,” Jimmy tells me.
“How can killing be right?” I ask them both.
“It’s called self-defense, Mary. In philosophy they call it a moral imperative. You have every right to save yourself if someone’s trying to steal everything you’ve got. Your life, that is,” Doc explains.
“And you made him answer for all those six young girls, kid. And for a bag lady named Martha and a night watchman, and a woman named Sandra. Nine people that we know of. You made him answer for all of them when we couldn’t make it happen. Killing’s the hardest thing you can do, but you have nothing to feel sorry for. He was trying to hurt you as bad as you can be hurt. And you might have saved the lives of some of those cops, like me and Doc, who came storming through that front door. I want to thank you, Mary. I never knew anybody as brave as you are,” Jimmy says.
“He’s right, Mary. We owe you big time. You got a heart like a lioness,” Doc smiles.
“Go back to sleep. The nurse is already pissed off at us both for coming in to see you so soon.”
