Sleep Tight

by Jeffrey Jacobson

  Sam looked back through the double set of glass doors at their unmarked Crown Vic. Calling it unmarked was a joke. Everybody in Chicago knew damn well that nobody drove Crown Vics except cops and those poor deluded schmucks who bought them used for God knew what reason at police auctions. Sam had left it parked illegally right in front of the doors on the lower level, where arriving passengers spilled out of O’Hare. It had been out there long enough to collect a halfhearted, thin layer of snow from a minor snow earlier. He wasn’t worried about any tickets though; O’Hare’s security, like everybody else, knew enough to leave it alone.

  Technically, they were supposed to be supporting the anti-gang units in one of the pointless sweeps of one of the Chicago Housing Authority’s worst buildings on the South Side. But that was like spraying a wasp’s nest with water. All it did was piss everybody off.

  Ed and Sam decided their time was better spent picking up Carolina.

  Sam caught sight of his reflection. A wiry guy in his fifties with thinning gray hair glared back at him. The expression on his face caught him off guard. He looked like he might kick a dog for the hell of it. This surprised Sam; he was actually in a decent mood. As decent as his moods could get, anyway.

  Ed, a heavyset black man the same age as Sam, waited for his girlfriend with a deep well of patience born of decades of endless stakeouts and too much fast food etched in his crinkled eyes. He held his flowers upright, not upside down, against his leg, like some guys. Not sideways either, held with indifference in crossed arms. Ed stood in a wide, relaxed stance, yet held those flowers as if they were growing out of a northern Illinois meadow at high noon.

  Sam checked his watch. 11:47. Carolina’s flight was nearly two hours late. They had been hoping to pick her up, drop her off, and be at the sweep for all the paperwork at the end. He was pouring the coffee into the water fountain and thinking of something to tell Commander Mendoza when he heard gunshots at the top of the escalator.

  Ed left the flowers on the floor between the escalators and they stormed up two and three steps at a time. Ed glided into customs, his old .38 Special held with both hands, elbows loose. It carried six hand-loaded .357 caliber shells. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to be carrying anything that powerful, but the big revolver had been grandfathered in when they changed the rules.

  Sam, on the other hand, preferred a more modern Glock, with a nine-shot clip. He wasn’t so much concerned with power as quantity. He’d rather spray lead all over the place than chose his shots carefully. If he had to shoot, then chances were he’d empty the clip, and probably the next one too.

  Sam popped up a few steps behind and went right as Ed broke left.

  They saw a tall, rail-thin male, standing at the far end of the hall, on the other side of the maze of blue rope lines. The man had a semiautomatic pistol jammed into the soft tissue under his chin.

  A security guard, bleeding from his hip, crawled slowly away. The rest of the tourists and passengers huddled against the booths and examination tables.

  Viktor’s eyes were closed. His shoulders quivered, as if low, vicious jolts of electricity shot along his backbone every few seconds.

  It was clear that he had disarmed the guard and fired a few rounds. But that didn’t explain why the tall man was bleeding too. Ed and Sam got closer. He appeared to have ragged slashes across his face and neck. Blood collected in the crotch of his jeans.

  The detectives got close enough to see the blood seeping into the industrial carpet as it spilled down his shoe.

  Sam said, “Put that fucking gun down.”

  A sob burst out of Viktor. A low, guttural cry.

  Sam tried again. “Put—”

  Underneath the fresh blood, muscles under Viktor’s arm twitched. The pistol started to come down, and the darkness of the muzzle grew larger every second as the detectives came within range.

  Ed fired.

  Viktor’s left eye disappeared and his head flopped to one shoulder. His long frame sagged and collapsed. One of the passengers uttered a short, sharp scream, but that was all.

  Silence bloomed as gun smoke drifted toward the ceiling.

  Sam held up his star and addressed the witnesses. “Chicago PD. Everybody relax. It’s over. Now, is anyone else hurt?” He bent to examine the bullet wound in the guard and winced. It looked like the bullet had gone through the bone, only an inch away from the outside of his hip. The man’s face was knotted in pain. Sam patted his shoulder. “Hang in there. Must hurt like a sonofabitch. Didn’t hit any arteries or anything though. You’ll live.”

  Ed flipped open his cell phone and began to speak, giving the dispatcher a quick summary of dry, emotionless facts.

  Sam stood. “Any doctors in here?”

  An older woman raised her hand. “I am nurse,” she said with a heavy Russian accent.

  “Great,” Sam said. “Can you help him out? You employees, does anybody have a first aid kit around here?”

  Somebody brought out a kit and Sam gave it to the nurse. He stepped back, letting the nurse get to work. He waited until Ed got off the phone, and they approached the body together.

  Viktor looked like he was still in as much agony in death as in life. His mouth was open, upper lip curled up, baring his teeth. He had landed on his back, one leg curled awkwardly under the other. There was a fist-sized hole in the back of his skull.

  “Shit,” Ed said.

  Sam nodded, looking around at customs. “That’s exactly what we just stepped in, brother. You got any ideas?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Me, neither.”

  Sam squatted next to the corpse, pulled out a pen, and used it to gently lift Viktor’s leather jacket. He couldn’t see any passport inside, and guessed that the ID must be in his back pocket. But he didn’t want to turn the body over. No point in messing up the evidence any more than necessary. He understood only too well they were facing a serious political shitstorm and blizzard of paperwork. The realization made him very, very tired.

  He peered closely at Viktor’s fingernails. They were full of crinkled strips of skin and clotted blood. “Lacerations,” he said quietly, indicating the slashes across the corpse’s face, neck, and arms.

  Something moved under Viktor’s shirt.

  Sam dropped the pen and stood quickly. Ed already had his gun back out. “Fuck is that?” Sam asked.

  Under the shirt, a small lump wriggled along Viktor’s stomach. It paused, as if resting a moment, then continued, heading for his waist.

  “Goddamnit. I don’t want to put another hole in this sonofabitch,” Ed said.

  Sam retrieved his pen and used it to lift the shirttail, revealing more deep gouges sliced across Viktor’s abdomen.

  Something dark and furry burst into his face in an eruption of brown wings.

  “Oh, fuck!” Sam blurted and fell back.

  The animal flitted away, rising and dipping as it whirled throughout the hall.

  “It’s a goddamn bat,” Ed said with a shaky laugh. They ignored the fluttering bat overhead for a moment and turned their attention back to Viktor. Sam lifted the shirt again, this time peeling it back to expose the nylon straps and pouches strapped to Viktor’s torso.

  More of the pouches were moving. Sam said, “Better let animal control know.”

  CHAPTER 3

  7:39 PM

  December 27

  Airport security showed up first, cordoning the area off and hustling the witnesses to a series of rooms for statements. Then the paramedics hauled off the bleeding security guard. Chicago PD wasn’t long after, and soon customs flickered with popping flashbulbs. The FBI was informed, and two sleepy guys in blue suits showed up and looked like they expected somebody to bring them coffee. Another couple of guys in darker suits showed some official-looking credentials to get inside, but would neither confirm nor deny they were from the CIA. The boys from Homeland Security barged in and started barking orders. Nobody paid much attention. Some poor bastard from the FAA rushed ar
ound, looking lost and unable to answer any questions.

  The word “terrorist” hung in the air like the gunpowder from Ed’s .38.

  The bat had disappeared.

  Once they’d given their statements to everybody, Ed and Sam sat back and enjoyed the circus. They knew damn well they were in for one hell of an ass-chewing from Commander Mendoza in the morning, but for now, it was fun to just watch the show as the various departments and agencies fought for jurisdiction. Apparently, the man had come from one of the more interesting countries in Eastern Europe, as far as the government was concerned. And no, they would only share information with the local Chicago cops if the situation demanded it, and only if they deemed the public health to be at risk.

  But when three astronauts in blue plastic suits with the initials CDC stenciled in no-nonsense letters a foot high on their backs appeared at the top of the escalators, the arguing trickled into silence. The men from the CDC conferred briefly with the FBI agents, then moved on to investigate the body.

  A squad of soldiers followed and formed a seven-man perimeter around the body. The rest took posts at various points throughout the room. They wore air filter masks, plastic covers over their fatigues, rubber boots sealed with duct tape, and surgical rubber gloves. Two more carried supplies for the guys in charge.

  The FBI agents started moving everyone back. It wasn’t hard. All of the fight had gone out of the various agencies. It was clear that the CDC was now in charge, and nobody was protesting. Nobody wanted to go to war with the CDC.

  Germs didn’t fight fair.

  Once someone was dead, you could stop worrying. Get him somewhere cold where the medical guys could cut him open and figure out what killed him and you were good to go. But when that particular agency got involved . . . all bets were off. If you could catch some kind of god-awful flesh-rotting disease from a corpse, then nobody wanted to fuck around. Everybody started to look for excuses to get the hell out of there.

  One of the FBI agents addressed the crowd. “Need your attention for a quick moment, folks, make sure everybody is up to speed. As of now, the body of the suspect will be handed off to the custody of the CDC.”

  The guys from the CDC ignored all this and used long tongs to place the remaining bats in small jars with lids connected to a complicated air filtration machine. One stood back and instructed the others. His voice was inaudible as he leaned over the body. He stepped back and unfolded one of the thickest body bags Sam had ever seen.

  “So we’d like to turn the scene over to them,” the FBI agent continued. “If we can have everyone file out in an orderly fashion, we’ll finish up the debriefing and a few other things in no time.”

  Ed said out of the side of his mouth, “What ‘other things’?”

  “My money’s on some kind of decontamination song and dance.”

  They wandered over to the edge of the escalators and saw the CDC guys spraying everything down with foam that expanded over every surface with sea-green bubbles. Behind that was more air-filtration equipment. Buckets to step in. Collapsible rooms to march through.

  “Fuck that. I paid sixty bucks for these shoes,” Ed said. “They ain’t hosing ’em down. And Carolina’s flight still hasn’t landed.”

  “So much for your flowers.”

  They walked away from the escalators. Sam acted like he was retrieving his briefcase, picking up a thin one abandoned in the shooting. He made a show of checking his watch as everyone crowded around the escalators. While he appeared to be merging into an organized line, he joined his partner in the far corner and they slipped through one of the employee-only doors.

  CHAPTER 4

  7:57 PM

  December 27

  Tommy Krazinsky kissed his daughter Grace good night, tucked the blanket tighter around her shoulders, and arranged Grace’s stuffed animals so they formed a protective wall around her. He made sure to slip her favorite, some kind of puppy with butterfly wings, under the blanket, so that Grace could cradle it in the crook of her small arm.

  “I’d hate to forget Princess . . . who’s this again?”

  “Princess Tianna Fuzzycakes, Daddy.” She watched him with a four-year-old’s solemn eyes.

  “Of course. She’ll keep you safe, okay?”

  Until tonight, Tommy had been able to stay with his daughter until she fell asleep on Sunday nights, but tonight was his first night at his new job. His best guess was that it would take just under an hour to get downtown. He didn’t own a car and would have to rely on Chicago’s rather unreliable public transportation. At least he didn’t have to catch a bus. Tommy could walk to the Red Line and catch an El straight downtown.

  He was about to start work for the Department of Streets and Sanitation. Although he would normally start his shift at the division headquarters on the West Side, tonight he’d been summoned downtown.

  He kissed Grace’s forehead again. “Sorry, baby. Daddy loves you, little one.” He kissed her forehead once more and stood. Shrugging into his coat, he said, “I’ll see you soon, okay? Don’t worry about anything. Daddy’s gonna fix it. I’ll straighten things out with Mommy. I promise.” He patted her bed and left before his voice cracked.

  Mommy was Kimmy. Kimmy was Tommy’s ex-wife. They had been high school sweethearts. Their relationship had gone slowly but steadily south when Kimmy had finally discovered why men were so gosh darn nice to her.

  Tommy had loved her before she had blossomed into a knockout: long black hair, the grin and eyes of an angel, and the body of a lustful demon. Her father had been a complete and utter drunken wreck, and she had fallen hard for the only boy who showed her kindness. Throughout high school, Tommy was the only man who had mattered in her life. In her mind, their lives were predestined. The two were going to spend their lives living in Bridgeport, barbecuing on weekends, cheering for the Sox, raising kids, attending St. Mary of Perpetual Help on West Thirty-second Street every Sunday and holiday, and pretty much living within the nexus of the Stevenson and Dan Ryan expressways for the rest of their lives.

  That didn’t work out.

  But by then, she’d already had Grace, and Tommy was sleeping on the couch. Four years later, she was living with Grace in a three-room flat in Wrigleyville. Her mom, Florence, owned the building, and lived downstairs.

  While Tommy was able to spend weekends with Grace, he and Kimmy didn’t talk much if they could help it. Grace wasn’t in school yet, but Tommy could see a whole new set of issues clouding up on the horizon when that happened next year.

  He gently closed Grace’s bedroom door. He stood for a moment in the middle of the long hall. The living room and front door in the shotgun apartment were off to the left. Kimmy was in the kitchen off to the right. Tommy knew better. He knew he should turn left and leave quietly.

  But his daughter’s fear made him angry. He turned to the right.

  “What do you want?” The words hit him before he’d stepped into the kitchen.

  Tommy shook his head, held his palms up, like he was surrendering. “I don’t have time to argue. She’s four years old, for Chrissakes. Why in the hell would you tell her there’s goddamn monsters in the closet and under the bed?”

  “You don’t have to take care of her five days a week. You don’t know what it’s like. She’s an angel, I’m sure, when she’s with you. She’s not like that here. No. Here, she won’t stay in her goddamn bed. You go be Father of the Year somewhere else. I’m her mom. I’ll take care of it. I’m sorry, but you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” She flipped the page of her magazine.

  “I shoulda known better than—”

  “You’re going to be late. Do you know what that means?”

  Tommy nodded, slowly. He couldn’t resist getting the last word in and said, “Shoulda known better,” and left.

  Tommy had had an assault charge filed against him last year.

  Kimmy had taken Tommy to the mall, forcing him to buy new clothes. She sent him into a store, waiting with Grace
in the food court. When Tommy got back, he found Kimmy openly flirting with a group of college dipshits. Grace was a few seats over, sitting next to some stranger, telling him what crayons to use in her coloring book.

  Tommy immediately sensed some seriously unpleasant vibes from the guy. Tommy stepped up to the table and told Grace to go sit by her mother. Kimmy turned and finally noticed Grace sitting so close to the guy. She was as surprised as Tommy, but not anywhere near as angry. The college boys eventually figured out that the husband was pissed and faded back into the mall.

  “Take Grace home,” Tommy said, never taking his eyes off the guy. “I’ll catch up later.”

  The guy decided it was time to go as well and went to lift his food tray. Tommy slammed it back to the table. Sweet and sour chicken and white rice flew up and scattered across the table. Tommy leaned in close. “Do you know my wife? Do you know my daughter? Do you know me?”

  “What are you, some kinda nut? Fuck you,” the guy said.

  Tommy snatched the tray and jabbed it into the guy’s throat. The guy made a gagging noise and fell backwards. Tommy swung the tray over his head and bashed it into the guy’s face. He was still pounding the man when mall security showed up and tackled him.

  The guy decided to push his luck and press charges. When it went to trial, the guy’s lawyer managed to show only the beating from the surveillance video, not how close he had been sitting to Grace, not where his hand may have been.

  Tommy was found guilty, and since he had no previous record of any consequence, he had to perform a few hundred hours of community service. But the blot on his record prohibited him from gaining any kind of custody. He only got to see Grace on the weekends and that was only because Kimmy wanted some time to herself.