Penance

by Dan O'Shea

  “So where do you want to go with this? I mean, you start rattling those cages, we both better get our Kevlar shorts on cause somebody’s gonna try to rip our nuts off.”

  “I know. Don’t even know if there’s anything there. But what am I supposed to do, not look?”

  “Nobody’s saying don’t look. Just look careful.”

  Lynch nodded. “Slo-mo around?”

  Shlomo Bernstein was a new detective in the district. Came from a rich family on the North Shore, decided he wanted to be a cop when he was six. Parents humored him. When he wanted to go to the academy out of college – summa cum laude from Princeton – his dad made him a deal. Do graduate school. Keep your options open. If you still want to be a cop, fine. So Shlomo took second in the MBA class at the U of C in about ten months and went straight to the academy. Made detective in record time. Probably be commissioner in another six, seven weeks.

  Starshak called out into the room. “Slo-mo, my office.”

  Bernstein was about five-six, needed his boots and winter coat to go to one hundred and fifty. Good looking guy, though. Very sharp dresser, like some junior-sized male model.

  Bernstein walked in the office and looked at the plane in the case.

  “Condor, right? Focke-Wulf 200?”

  Starshak smiled. “Yeah. Just finished it.”

  “You went with the Arctic markings. What, the Murmansk run?”

  Starshak laughed. “Bernstein, why don’t you get your ass on Jeopardy, make a couple million? Say, what’s on your plate right now? You got time to help Lynch with this Marslovak thing?”

  Bernstein’s eyes lit up like a fourteen year-old finding his dad’s Playboy stash. “Hell, yes. What do you need?”

  “Couple of things,” Lynch said. “First, looks like our guy took the shot from better than seven hundred yards. Can’t be too many guys around can put a hole through somebody’s heart from that distance. Get me some background, see what you can find.”

  “Like Wimbledon Cup winners, that sort of thing?”

  “This ain’t tennis,” said Starshak.

  “Wimbledon Cup is the national thousand-yard shooting championship,” said Bernstein.

  “Jesus, Slo-mo,” said Lynch. “You got a long gun at home? I gotta put you in the mix for this?”

  Slo-mo shrugged. “Just read it somewhere.”

  Lynch shook his head. “OK, the other thing. Unlimber that underpaid MBA brain of yours. Take a look at MarCorp, last few years. See if something jumps out at you, somebody that might want to come back at Eddie Marslovak. Somebody that would know where to find this kind of talent.”

  “OK. Am I gonna get in the field on this at all, or are you gonna keep my ass parked behind the computer all day?”

  “Who knows, Slo-mo. Find me something nice, and I might take you out for ice cream later.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Gonna get calluses on my ass. Could have done that at Merrill Lynch for another couple hundred grand a year. All right. I’ll see what I can get. Then I’ll go home, dust my gun.”

  “Tell you what, Slo-mo. You get me something nice, and, after ice cream, how about we go roust some bad-ass homies, tune em up a little, maybe cap some nines on their asses?”

  Slo-mo smiled. “Double dip, Lynch, with sprinkles. Then we go roust some goyim.”

  Back at his desk, Lynch found a stack of messages. Mess of reporters. Two messages from crime scene, one from McCord, all three marked urgent. He called McCord’s cell.

  “What do you got?” Lynch asked.

  CHAPTER 12 – CHICAGO

  1971

  Hastings Clarke lived in one of the older high-end buildings along Lake Shore Drive, just north from Oak Street Beach. Dark paneling, heavy furniture, thick oriental carpets.

  “Nice place, Mr Clarke,” Declan Lynch said as Clarke ushered him in.

  “Thank you,” said Clarke. “And please, call me Hastings. How can I help? I’m very anxious for David’s killers to be found.”

  “Let’s start with the obvious, given the ugly nature of the crime scene. Was David getting any threats?”

  “David could be very forceful discussing the issues – you’ve seen that. But he was also a very fair-minded man. You’ve heard what he’s had to say about his father’s politics, yet his father and that whole political machine enthusiastically supported him. I couldn’t have imagined anyone wishing harm to David – he devoted so much of himself. Still, something like this happens, and then you start to think…”

  “Think about what?”

  “Detective, you understand what a volatile issue race is in this city, hell, in this country. And David was one of the few honestly race-blind people I have ever known. Absolutely without prejudice. A close friend of Dr King’s, in fact. That was central, vital, to his campaign. I think that’s what gave him the moral authority to speak out against some of the more radical elements in the colored movement. There were a few people, a very small minority, on the fringes of that movement who resented him – some, in fact, who I believe find exacerbating racial strife to be in their best interests. We did get some ugly mail – calling David just another white massuh, that kind of thing – from those people.”

  “Anyone in particular come to mind?”

  “There’s a group called the AMN Commando, AMN standing for Any Means Necessary. A lot of its members used to be associated with Fred Hampton and the Panthers. And I want to make it clear, detective, that I am not equating the two. Hampton may have been a polarizing figure, but he did a lot of good for his community. His extra-judicial murder – and I know that may offend you as a policeman in this city, but that’s what it was, and David agreed with me on that – that’s driven some in the Negro community in dangerously radical directions.”

  “So you think these AMN guys are worth a look?”

  “I didn’t say that, detective. You asked about threats, and I wanted to be up front with you. My real fear, to be honest? The mayor, Riley, men like that, they’ll seize on this to push their agenda, solve their problems. I hate to inject race into David’s murder when he’s been such a champion of the colored community. That the bigot element might seize on David’s death for their own ends, that would be intolerable.”

  “That why you’re thinking of running? I hear maybe you’re throwing your hat in the ring.”

  “It is a consideration. I will wait and see who the Hurleys bring forward. But I am committed to seeing David’s ideals represented in this election. I am willing to make that sacrifice if necessary.”

  Sacrifice, Lynch thought to himself. The bullshit you had to listen to out of these people. “OK, let’s change gears here a bit. Can you tell me what David was doing at Stefanski’s? Can you fill me in on the timing there?” Lynch watching Clarke, seeing a little tightening around the eyes during the question.

  “The mayor wanted David to talk with Stefanski about some local political issues. Let’s face it, as much as David was committed to change, he understood he needed to be elected if he wanted to change things. He couldn’t ignore the Democratic machine’s ability to deliver votes. It’s my understanding that Stefanski was the connection to some of the city workers that drive turn-out efforts. As distasteful as David found some of the local politics, at least he grew up in this climate. He knew these men, even if he didn’t always approve of them. He had a way of pressing his concerns without damaging those relationships. So he met with Stefanski regularly. I did not attend those meetings. My presence in certain circles seems only to inflame things.”

  “So David was spending a lot of time with Stefanski?”

  “As I said, detective, I didn’t attend David’s meetings with Stefanski. Certainly, he’d meet with him from time to time.” Clarke seeming less and less comfortable.

  “He have a decent relationship with the guy?”

  “I really don’t understand your focus here.” Clarke sounding a little short now.

  “The murders happened at Stefanski’s place and they were pretty ugly.
You see that level of violence, lots of times that points at something personal.”

  “I don’t know how to respond to that, detective. I’ve heard stories, of course, about Stefanski. A bit of a reputation. I suppose this could have been something aimed at him, something David got caught up in.”

  “Kind of a late night, though, wasn’t it? Midnight?”

  “Nature of the beast in an election.”

  “OK, another thing. I understand that David owned a gun.”

  A little laugh from Clarke. “Quite a row about that, actually. His father insisted, after Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, and after King’s. He wanted David to be able to protect himself. Silly, really. I mean, look at those shootings. What good would a gun have done either man?”

  “It was a Walther, a PPK?”

  “I wouldn’t know, detective. We used to do some skeet shooting, summers out on the Long Island, so shotguns I can tell you something about. Pistols are beyond me.”

  “Small automatic, the kind from the James Bond movies.”

  “That would be David. He did have a sense of style.”

  “He carry it?”

  “He did that night, actually. I saw it in his briefcase that afternoon, for all the good it did him.”

  CHAPTER 13 – CHICAGO

  1971

  Five men were in the conference room at City Hall when Declan Lynch arrived shortly after 9.30am.

  “Sorry I’m late,” said Lynch. “Just got word to come down when I got to the station.”

  “No problem, Lynch,” said Riley. “Thanks for coming.”

  Riley had his coat off, over the back of his chair, and his cuffs turned up over his wrists. Two almost identical guys in black suits sat across the table with a tape deck sitting in front of them. Crew cuts, that tight-ass look Feds usually had. Bob Riordan, head of Hurley’s Red Squad – an informal police team charged with tracking peaceniks, Reds, the Weatherman, Black Panthers and, Lynch figured, probably Republicans – sat at the near end of the table. At the far end sat a compact man, perhaps five feet nine inches, in a tan summer suit, three-button natural shoulder, a white shirt, and red and blue rep tie.

  Riley waved around the table. “Gentleman, this is Detective Declan Lynch. Lynch, Riordan you know. Over here we have agents Harris and McDonald, FBI COUNTERINTELPRO. They coordinate with Riordan on, well, whatever needs coordinating. And over here we have Ezekiel Fisher. Zeke, you wanna tell Detective Lynch what you do?”

  “No,” said Fisher.

  Riley chuckled. “It’s alright, Lynch. Same answer I always get. It’s OK. He’s a friend of Hurley’s. Anyway, he helps out.”

  “So what’s the drill here, Riley?” Lynch asked.

  “Couple things. First off, it’s the mayor’s kid we’re dealing with here, so he called J. Edgar, told him he wanted some help on it. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Fine by me,” said Lynch.

  “Second, papers are already going bat shit with this, and you know how the old man feels about press, especially around his family. So he wants to play this real tight. Wants to keep it to the players here in this room until we need something else.”

  “Again, fine by me, but my captain’s gonna wanna know what I’m up to.”

  “Commissioner’s talking to your captain now. You need anything from him, you got it, but he don’t need to know shit,” said Riley.

  “Gonna make things ticklish for me, just so you know.”

  “Lynch, this turns out, you can get your ticket punched any way you like. It don’t, Captain’s the least of your problems.”

  Lynch paused a minute, stared Riley down. Not like he didn’t know that, didn’t mean he had to like it.

  “OK,” Lynch said finally, “so what are we doing today?”

  “The old man, he was telling me that Junior was catching some shit from this one nigger group – the AMN Commando. Panther types. Wanted that looked into.”

  “Yeah,” said Lynch. “Interviewed Hastings Clarke yesterday. He brought them up. Seemed like he wanted to raise the radical black angle and shoot it down at the same time.”

  Riley nodded. “Junior was a little sensitive about race stuff. It’s all the rage with these guys, brotherhood of man and all that shit. So Clarke wants to keep the coloreds on his side. The thing, though, is the old man, he hears maybe some of these guys had a hard on for Junior, he checks em out, calls Riordan, who runs things past our buddies from Washington here, and God knows who Zeke runs things past. Thing is, this comes up,” Riley nodded his head at the tape deck, “and we thought you should hear it.” Riley nodded at the Feds, and MacDonald clicked the tape on.

  Negro voice, sounded like anyway. Giving a speech in front of a pretty raucous crowd. “We ain’t waitin’ no more. We ain’t askin’ no more. Rights ain’t some scraps we wait for from the massuh’s table. We don’t need them from nobody – we own them. We was born with them. All we need to do is keep Whitey from takin’ them away. Pursuit of happiness? You ask any Black man wants to work for what any white man gets for free. They be takin’ it away. Liberty? You ask our brothers locked up in white jails because they march for their rights or fight for their rights. They be takin’ that away. Life? You ask Fred Hampton bout that when you see him, shot in his bed by the Chicago pigs. Butchered in his bed. They be takin’ life away. But we gonna let them take ours? No. By any means necessary. Fight in the streets if we gotta. By any means necessary. Butcher the pigs if we gotta. By any means necessary–” The Fed clicked the tape off.

  “Butcher the pigs?” said Lynch.

  “Thought that might ring a bell,” Riley answered.

  “Who’s on the tape?”

  Zeke Fisher sat forward in his seat, folded his hands in front of him on the table. “He calls himself Simba now, which is Swahili for lion. His real name is Harold James, Jr. Born August 3, 1948 to Rosa and Harold James in Mobile, Alabama. Moved to the south side of Chicago in September of 1955. He was a player with the Black Panthers here, mostly with some of the social programs they were running around the South Side. After the Hampton shooting, he turned severely militant.”

  “He’s organizing the gangs,” Riordan said. “We got some informants on the inside of that. Hampton had that supposed gang truce, all that crap about the niggers gotta stop fighting each other, gotta fight us instead, so this James guy knows that crowd. What’s he’s doing now is trying to turn that into his own little army.”

  Harris, the FBI guy, spoke up. “We’ve obtained tapes of other speeches in which this butcher the pigs rhetoric has come up. He’s very hostile to the police – to any authority, really.”

  Lynch felt like he was sitting through a sales job – everybody in the room adding his piece to the pitch.

  “The thing is,” Lynch said, “why would some guy who’s known for this butcher the pigs line go and paint it on a wall?”

  “That’s a valid question,” said Fisher. “I don’t think we can look at this like a traditional crime where the intent is to avoid detection. This was a political act. I believe that James wants to create a direct conflict with the political authority, and especially with the more liberal politicians that, in essence, are his competition. He wants to create an unbridgeable barrier between the radical movement and traditional political solutions. In essence, he wants a rebellion.”

  “Sounds like a death wish,” said Lynch.

  “Hey, he wants to die, I want him dead, I got your racial harmony right here,” said Riordan.

  Lynch stopped Riley in the hall outside the conference room. “Listen, couple of things I want to run past you without the audience.”

  “OK,” said Riley, pushing open the door to the men’s room. “Step into my office.”

  Riley walked over to a urinal and started taking a leak. “So what’s up?”

  “ME found something on Hurley once he got him in the shop. No easy way to put this. Looks like Junior was a fag. He had semen in his ass. Stefanski’s semen, so far as the ME can tell.” Ly
nch was watching closely to see how Riley took this.

  Riley kept pissing. Finished, zipped up, turned around.

  “This on paper?”

  Lynch decided to play a little dodge ball on that one. “Not in the ME’s report. He wasn’t sure this had anything to do with the murder. Didn’t want it out there if it doesn’t need to be. Kind of a hard thing to overlook, though.”

  “Yeah. Jesus. Fuckin’ Stefanski. I mean, I knew he was a goddamn pervert, but a turd burglar? Damn.”

  “I know. So this colored shit? Could be. But then I got this fag thing, and I gotta wonder.”

  “Yeah. I can see that. So where you going with it?”

  “Gotta run it out.”

  “Yeah. Old man know?”

  “Haven’t told him.”

  “Let’s hope you don’t have to. He’s got a little kill-the-messenger streak in him.”

  “Anyway, wanted you to know, just so nothing comes at you out of leftfield. You can decide what the mayor needs to know. Speaking of which, you want me to fill in the Fed twins or your pet spook?”

  “The Feds are just here to help out with the nigger shit. Don’t tell them nothin’ on this other stuff. Fisher? Don’t even talk to that bastard you don’t talk to me first. That son of a bitch makes my sack shrivel up. As far as what the mayor needs to know, I ever gotta tell him the kid was taking it up the ass, we’re both screwed.”

  Later, Riley and Ezekiel Fisher walked through the plaza, past the Picasso statue.

  “ME got the fag stuff,” Riley said.

  “We had to figure that was possible,” said Fisher. “Is it being pursued?”

  “This Lynch guy, he’s got the bit in his teeth. I’ll leave that with you.”

  “I understand,” said Fisher.