Murphy scrambled his way up onto the back of the truck. The commander hesitated to climb up after his godson. Cronin had put on a few pounds and always suffered from back problems. The patrol cop lowered the aluminum walk ramps for the commander to climb. Crates labeled Lamb Carcasses lined the long sides of the truck in unsteady piles. An opened crate prevented Murphy’s movement down the center aisle. “I only see skinned lamb carcasses in an open box,” he shouted back to Cronin.
While he moved the open crate blocking the center aisle, the commander talked outside to the patrol officer who had found the body. He then rattled up the walk ramp to the bed of the truck. “The copper tells me the body he found is in the crate behind the cab. Let’s take a gander.”
As Murphy climbed over a jumble of boxes, one tumbled from the top of another and dumped the corpse of a young man frozen stiff onto the truck bed. He bent over to examine the body. A gang tattoo of a crown on the back of the corpse. Needle marks on the left arm.
The commander came from behind and strained to flip over the corpse. The cheek under the right eye bore three teardrop tattoos. “Gangbanger tattoos. What’s he doing so far from his territory?” Cronin exhaled a foggy stream from his mouth. “Looks like my hunch might be right.”
“Or just a drug deal gone bad,” Murphy said.
“Let’s move to the front,” the commander said, “to check out the other body.”
They found a crate pushed against the rear of the cab. The officer outside had already loosened the top. “You do the honors,” Cronin said to Murphy.
Murphy took off the top. He let out a moan.
“What’s the matter, Jimmy?”
He looked away from the box and closed his eyes, too devastated to care the commander had called him Jimmy.
It was Santiago but looking older.
What had they done to him?
The commander looked inside the crate. “What’s the matter? Needle marks in the left arm. Just another druggie gangbanger.”
“He’s not a gangbanger, damn it. Not anymore. And he didn’t use drugs. I never saw needle marks on him when he was alive.” He couldn’t hold it in any longer. “That’s my son, Santiago.”
“Your son?”
“We adopted him.”
“I’m sorry, Jim.”
“That he’s my son? That he’s a gangbanger? Just come out and say it.” He glared at the commander. “You’ll never convince me he went back to the gangs.”
“Don’t worry,” Cronin said. “I don’t have any convictions left to sell you.” The commander took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. “I didn’t know.” He put on his hat and replaced the crate cover over Santiago’s body. He put his arm around Murphy’s shoulders. “We’ll get forensics out here to finish the investigation. Let’s go.”
Before getting into the squad car with the commander, who insisted on driving, Murphy collected himself by studying a solitary crane moving rusted slabs of steel onto a scrap heap. The bastards threw his son into a scrap heap. The region had once been alive with steel mills. The region is now desolate and dead . . . just like Santiago.
Murphy got in. “I’m volunteering for your investigation.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“They murdered my son.”
Chapter Eighteen
DECEMBER 18, 2028
MEETING OF ILLINOIS ELECTORS
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS
On a blustery afternoon, Sebastian Senex stopped checking the entrance to the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge for their overdue arrival. Holiday wreaths on the walls and Santa Claus figures on the bar festooned with miniature red light bulbs lifted his spirits. The neon Green Mill sign blinked green behind the empty stage where a jazz band played evenings. Hidden away in the dark and timeworn art deco hangout of Chicago mobsters long dead, Senex felt secure and snug in the green-velvet booth of the legendary bar lounge.
They said Al Capone liked the booth so he could keep an eye on both the front and side doors to avoid unwelcome surprises. He and Big Al had something in common. They both had Plan Bs. Chicagoans would someday remember him along with Big Al. They’d both be Chicago boys who had put the city on the world map.
He turned to a news report on the television set. Illinois presidential electors were meeting in the state capital of Springfield on the required date of the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. With unexpected permission granted by the Illinois secretary of state, reporters with cameras circled around the electors about to vote for president and vice president of the United States after reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
“This Electoral College pageantry is pretty much a formality,” the TV anchor announced. “Each delegate has one vote for president and one for vice president. The Democratic National Committee has selected Roscoe Corker to replace the assassinated Franklin Dexter Walker as its candidate for the office of president. The twenty Illinois electors whom voters elected to support the now deceased Franklin Dexter Walker are expected to rubber-stamp Roscoe Corker for president and Dallas Taylor for vice president.”
Everything was going as it should. He wasn’t called Mr. Plan B for nothing. Since the election of Tweedledum-Republican Brock Brewster looked in danger, he had engineered the Tweedledee-Democrat Roscoe Corker to replace the deceased Franklin Dexter Walker. Corker would do almost as well as Brewster for him.
The Democratic presidential replacement had been his errand boy for a long time in the world of Chicago politics. That made him comfortable with a candidate who didn’t resent being owned as long as he got his thirty pieces of silver.
Only two parties existed for him: the In Party and the Out Party. And he wanted to be with the In Party to get things done. Things change. So, down with Brewster if necessary and up with Corker. The public liked the derring-do personality of Corker the Gulf War flying ace with sex appeal.
Hidden campaign contributions ensured the support of the chairman of the Democratic National Committee for Roscoe Corker. Al Tweed appreciated the blind eye the head of Promethean Pharma turned to the chairman’s periodic embezzlement of party funds. It didn’t take much effort to persuade the DNC chairman to substitute the name of Roscoe Corker as the Democratic candidate for president.
The only reason Senex preferred Brock Brewster, his Plan A, as president was that Brewster agreed with him that the United States had to be saved from itself. Corker was too much of a political dimwit to know what he and Brewster were talking about.
“The Democratic electors,” the TV anchor reported, “are ready to cast their votes for president and vice president of the United States.”
One of the twenty Democratic electors, Roscoe Corker’s personal trainer, voted first. Except for him, the electors were all political insiders honored by the Democratic State Central Committee for services rendered to the Democratic Party. The personal trainer commented that “sure as God made green apples” they’d all follow tradition and support the Democratic candidates chosen by the Democratic Party. The following nine came up one by one to deposit their votes in the wooden ballot box inside the state capitol building as soon as the elector chosen as chairperson called their names.
The remaining ten of the twenty electors greeted Dallas Taylor, who requested and was granted permission to enter the room. Taylor’s appearance was a surprise in what was supposed to be a choreographed proceeding. At the request of one of the ten, the chairperson allowed a fifteen-minute recess for Taylor to converse with electors in a corner of the room. The screen cut to a commercial.
What is she doing? She didn’t belong there. It wasn’t in the script. He drummed his fingers on the table. Showboating as usual was his answer. Despite the publicity-seeking antics of Dallas Taylor, everything was going as it should just as the front door to the Green Mill opened.
Sebastian’s daughter, Daisy Senex, sauntered through the
door hand in hand with Vinnie “the Poet” Palomba. The new head of the Outfit sported a suntanned face in his Armani suit and mirrored sunglasses with red tint. The underworld rumor was that Palomba frittered away too much time in Nevada and wasn’t taking care of family business the way his father had. Senex gulped the remainder of the Cognac hot toddy to fortify himself for the face-off with Palomba.
Unaware of her father’s business relationship with Palomba, Daisy introduced him to her boyfriend. Palomba handed her a wad of cash with the suggestion she do some shopping before meeting up later. She tried saying that she’d like to stay but stopped when her boyfriend held a forefinger to his lips.
As Senex watched his daughter leave, the vignette confirmed what he had long known. She was a bright criminologist but docile and ditzy. At least she would never become one of those radical feminists who’d cross him.
“You look great, Sebastian,” Palomba said, sliding into the special booth across from him without asking permission. “What’s the secret?”
He leaned across the table and whispered, “Chasing dames.” It was the kind of thing Big Al might have said.
“Yeah, right.”
Over the past days, a warmth had spread throughout his body from what Daisy in her tai chi babble called the lower dantian, three fingers below the navel. Each day parabiosis reversed aging at a steady rate. Urges he thought long dead surfaced once again. He distrusted them. The pharmaceutical empire he had built could come crashing down if the urges made him vulnerable. An atheist, he found it paradoxical he shared the same fear of modern females as many in the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The new breed of women would want to take over the power to run things if he let them in. He couldn’t allow that.
“Seriously, I try to live a healthy lifestyle.” He wasn’t about to share the magic of parabiosis with Palomba, whose youth he resented. He could be young like Palomba. Now that he had the answers, he wanted a do-over in the game of life. He needed the mulligan of parabiosis to continue chasing the monkey of success. He had caught the monkey in the rise of Promethean Pharma, but it had escaped into the world of politics where he would hurry after it.
“Shall we get down to business?” Eager to finish up with the Poet, he checked the front and back doors. He preferred not to be seen with the new leader of the Outfit. It wouldn’t look good. “The glare of the neon sign bothers me,” he lied, slipping on his own pair of sunglasses. He cleared his throat. “I’m concerned the police are now involved.”
On the table Palomba spread his fingers, slender as a pianist’s. “The truck accident was unforeseen.” He looked directly at Senex, sunglasses to sunglasses, each man’s roadblock to the soul of the other. “Shit happens.”
Who does this goombah gangster think he is talking to?
“I don’t pay for shit.”
“Tough guy, huh?” Palomba laughed. “Lucky for you, I’m a kinder and gentler boss.”
A joke of a boss was more like it. Palomba’s father had kept his organization thriving. The son was not the father. He could be had. The man in front of him was too busy hustling bimbos like his daughter and writing postmodern poetry. “I’m concerned our . . . our street trash removal project . . . might be discovered.”
“No need for code,” Palomba said. “I’m not bugged, and this place is clean.”
“I don’t want you to think—”
“Why would I think you’re wearing a wire?” Palomba asked. “My father checked you out.”
“Good.” He had the son’s trust even though he never had the father’s. “I just don’t want anything to go wrong.”
“Of course.” Palomba’s fingers reached across the table like tentacles. He put his hand on Senex’s. “Don’t worry. You’re insulated. Even if something happens, my boys take the rap . . . not you.”
That’s the way it should be, Senex thought. You are the expendables whose only function is to help the In Party stay in. We each use each other to get things done under the table. I can return to the surface life of respectability, but in the end, the whiff of crime will always hang around your head like the faint odor of sewer stench.
“I have a problem,” Palomba said.
“What is it?”
“The chicken feed you’re paying us for disappearing the street punks is just walking-around money.” Palomba waved off a waiter who asked if he wanted to order. “We’re really doing you a favor. We’re not worried about the gangs cutting into our business.”
Senex called back the waiter and asked for another Cognac hot toddy. The truth was that the Outfit was very worried about its future. The RICO law, witness protection programs, and breakthrough eavesdropping technology had the Outfit on its knees. The code of silence was broken. Mobsters ratted out one another to save their own skins. Its sources of revenue were drying up so that it could no longer permit the street gangs to siphon away the take from criminal activity. The house of Big Al was tumbling down, and the only question was what would replace it. The Russian mafia? The Mexican cartels? Certainly not a poet named Vinnie Palomba.
“Why are you here?” Senex took off his sunglasses and drilled the Outfit boss with his eyes. “You didn’t come just to reassure me.”
“I want the bounty per head raised to what I suggested last month.” He glared at Senex. “And I want your answer now . . . no more stalling.”
“I’ll do it.” He offered his hand to Palomba. “Do we have a deal?”
Palomba took Senex’s hand. “We’ve got a deal.” Palomba checked his cell and slid out of the booth. “It’s time to meet up with Daisy. But before I go, what’s the real reason you’re having me disappear gang members? And don’t give me a civics lesson about a better America.”
“You got me.” Expecting this moment, Senex held up his hands in surrender and whispered into Palomba’s ear. “We need blood for research. We’re working on finding the holy grail of artificial blood. For that we need a lot of human blood.”
“That checks.” Palomba patted Senex on the back. “We know you have a special unit at Promethean doing top-secret research.”
Palomba walked toward the door as if to leave but then turned. “C’mon, Sebastian, level with me. What do you take to look so good?”
“Blood.” Senex paused. “The secret project is I’m really a vampire.”
“Never took you for being a comedian.” Palomba smiled. “If we ever fall out, I’ll have to drive a stake through your heart.”
After Palomba’s departure, Sebastian Senex was about to make a call to Dr. Angelo Mora when the sound and images from the TV caught his attention.
“This is extraordinary, ladies and gentlemen. After talking to Senator Dallas Taylor from Texas, the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential candidate, in what appears to have been a highly emotional conversation, five of the ten delegates remaining to vote have announced their intention to break ranks with the other electoral delegates from Illinois. They have reversed the order from what the national Democratic leaders wanted. They are instead casting five votes for Dallas Taylor as president and five for Roscoe Corker as vice president.”
“They can’t do that,” the bartender said. “The voters elected them to support their party’s candidates in the order the party wants.”
“They sure can,” said a patron. “I teach constitutional law at DePaul University. They call them . . . faithless electors . . . We’ve had almost two hundred of them since the United States first held presidential elections. Unlike other states, Illinois hasn’t yet taken away their discretion to change their votes.”
“I want another Cognac hot toddy,” said Senex, wobbling to the bar for a closer look at the TV.
“Haven’t you had enough, Mr. Senex?” the bartender asked.
“Don’t you want a fat tip?”
“Cognac hot toddy coming right up.”
“What a day,” the TV anchor cont
inued. “This switch could prevent any party from obtaining a majority of electoral votes. This election is probably headed for a final determination by Congress. This has only happened twice before in American history for a presidential election and once in an election for vice president.”
“That’s not right.” The bartender snapped a towel at the TV set. “This is supposed to be a democracy.”
Tweedledum Brewster or Tweedledee Corker. He had won either way.
Chapter Nineteen
Junk littered the triangular patch of earth outside his unmarked car under the expressway. Detective Jim Murphy called it his writer’s room. Here he could work on his secret project free of prying eyes. The thump of overhead traffic prodded him awake as the digital dashboard clock flashed 11:47 p.m. in red. While Commissario Marco Leone visited a relative at the University of Chicago, Murphy had precious time alone to follow his private dream.
Near shift’s end he hoped the rest of the night would be free of dispatch calls. He never knew when a call might come. Two nights ago, a mob of two hundred teenagers ran frenzied through the Loop in an act of “wilding” that resulted in purse snatching and theft from Loop department stores. Merchants demanded the police do something. But if they did the wrong something, cops feared finding themselves as defendants in a courtroom. So more police took to doing something. They did nothing.
As part of its initiation rites, a street gang in his surveillance area began to hurl rocks from the Jackson Boulevard Bridge at vehicles passing underneath on the Kennedy Expressway. The gang played a game of cat and mouse to see how many times they could evade the police. So far the score was gang ten and police six. The rock hurling picked up speed with each gang success of a wounded or dead driver.
The anticipation of a radio dispatch made his fingers fly faster over the laptop keys and . . . at least he liked to think . . . more creatively. He had a better reason tonight to throw himself into his work. Santiago dead in the truck rushed into his mind like a leak in a rowboat he had to bail out with the ferocity of his typing.
American Conspiracy Page 7
