Penance

by Dan O'Shea

  “And Marslovak rolled it up anyway.”

  “Big time.”

  “That’s good work, Slo-mo. Get what details you can. We’ll go down tomorrow and drop this on Marslovak, see how that shakes out. Get your butt out of the office for a while.”

  “What, no ice cream?”

  “Buy you a cone on the way back.” Lynch took a step away and then turned back. “Hey, Slo-mo. You dress nice. Think you could maybe give me some pointers?”

  Bernstein turned in his chair, gave Lynch a careful look.

  “You look OK. Little GAP-commercial generic maybe, but OK.”

  “Yeah, but I was thinking of upgrading a little. You seem like you put some effort into this.”

  “I’m a Lilliputian Jew, Lynch, not an ex-jock. We’re supposed to use money to get chicks, and I went with the cops instead of the investment bankers. If I don’t at least dress up, bris would’ve been the last time anybody touched my unit. So, you want to push the old sartorial envelope? You got a date or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  “OK. When?”

  “Tonight.”

  Bernstein laughed, shook his head. “It’s almost 4.00 Lynch. How much time you got?”

  “Picking her up at 7.00.”

  Bernstein pulled a planner out of his desk. “I’m going to call my guy at Barney’s, over on North Michigan. Andre. And yes, Lynch, he is gay, so don’t sap him or anything when he measures your inseam, OK? He’ll set you up nice. You’re at least gonna have to get some pants hemmed, which means he’s gonna have to push it through alterations for you, so slip him a little something. Otherwise I look like a schmuck.”

  “What, like a five?”

  “Like a twenty.”

  “Jesus, Slo-mo. Maybe you should be working there.”

  “Be a twenty-grand bump in pay if I did.”

  CHAPTER 18 – CHICAGO

  March, 1971

  Lynch jerked awake in bed, looked at the clock. A little after 3am. Dog barking. Not Missy, neighbor’s dog. Somebody shouting, Lynch not able to make it out. Tires squealing in the alley.

  Julie sat up in bed.

  “What’s going on?”

  Lynch getting out of bed, grabbing his short .38 from the nightstand.

  “Don’t know. Get downstairs, keep the kids in their rooms.” Lynch stepping into his slippers and heading for the stairs.

  Lynch stepped out the back door, wearing his pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. His next-door neighbor was out on the porch, trying to calm his mutt down, the mutt still yapping.

  “What’s going on?” Lynch asked across the fence.

  “Mess of coloreds out back by your garage, Declan. They jumped in some red beater when I come out, hauled ass down the alley.”

  “Get a make on the beater?”

  “Dodge, it looked like.”

  Red Dodge. Lynch headed down the fence toward the garage, whistling for the dog. Nothing. Let himself out the gate, walking around the side of the garage into the alley.

  Missy lay on her side in front of the garage door, throat cut, blood pooling around her head and shoulders. Someone had dropped a blood-soaked wad of newspaper next to the dog. Lynch looked up at the garage door. “Butcher the Pigs” smeared in blood on the door.

  And just on the edge of the pool of blood, part of a heel print. The distinctive diamonds from the bottom of a pair of All-Stars.

  All sorts of things going through Lynch’s head. Like if everybody’s playing this so tight, how come some radical asshole knows who I am, where I live? Like if he does, and he’s such a fucking warrior, what’s with knifing an old, half-blind dog? Like either way, Lynch and this Simba fucker, they were gonna talk. And depending on what Lynch got, he was either gonna take down this Simba and his fist-pumping friends, or he was gonna take down somebody else. He didn’t care how Junior Hurley felt about it, Lynch was about done taking it up the ass.

  Lynch went back in the house, grabbed the phone, and called the all-hours number he had for Riley. It rang five times before Riley picked up, Lynch hearing the sleep in his voice. Good, thought Lynch. Would’ve made him think had Riley been up, waiting on a call.

  “What?” said Riley, clearing the gunk out of his throat.

  “It’s Lynch.” He told Riley about the dog and the garage. “Call Riordan, get the troops up. We’re gonna go roust this Simba bastard, get some answers. Got the feeling he ain’t in bed anyway.”

  The Feds said Simba was holed up in a two-flat on the west side just south of the Eisenhower off Central. Lynch met Riley and Riordan and his squad in the north parking lot at Chicago Stadium. Riordan had ten cops with him, big guys, every one of them carrying a pump gun along with his sidearm. The FBI twins were there, too, in their raid jackets.

  “Your buddy Fisher not coming?” said Lynch.

  “He’s more an advise and consent guy,” said Riley.

  “Good, because I’m pretty sure he’s got no police powers. And you know you’re not coming, right?”

  Riley held up his hands and shook his head. “Fuck, no. News tonight is as close to any rabid armed niggers as I wanna get.”

  “Good.” Lynch speaking up. “We are doing this by the book, gentlemen. I need this son of a bitch Simba alive to answer questions. I don’t need his head on a wall next to Hampton’s. OK? Riordan, what do you got?”

  “Our guy tells us probably four, maybe five, guys in the place,” said Riordan. “This Simba, he sleeps in a room on the first floor in the back so he can get out quick if he’s gotta. Empty lot to the west, and the building east is an abandoned three-flat, so they ain’t gonna do any roof-to-roof crap. All of em gonna be armed, and we gotta figure all of em are willing to shoot it out after Simba’s little pep talk on the news tonight. I don’t care how many dead niggers we got, I don’t want any dead cops.”

  Lynch interrupted. “All we end up with is dead coloreds, we don’t get any answers. Don’t forget we’re dealing with Hurley’s kid here. We’re gonna surround the place, we’re gonna announce, and then, when they don’t come out, and I figure they don’t, we’re gonna gas em and wait it out.”

  One of Riordan’s goons shook his head. “I ain’t gettin’ shot over no nigger– ”

  “Hey,” Riley shouted. “Mayor wants to know what happened here. This is Lynch’s case, and his rules.”

  Lynch looked around the group. “OK, here’s how we do this. Me and the Feds here, we’re taking the alley in the back. Layout of the place is there’s no door straight back and only the one door on the side of the house they can come out toward the back. Got the two doors up front, one for the upper and one for the lower. Riordan, you line your boys up across the front, get a couple on each corner that got a clear view down the sides. Let me make this real clear. I’m not telling anybody not to shoot back, but I see anybody, and I mean anybody,” Lynch looking right at Riordan, “pulling any crap, I’m gonna cuff em myself. I want the Feds to do the bullhorn work. They can tell this Simba they’re here to make sure nobody gets trigger happy. All this guy is at this point is a guy I wanna talk to. I don’t want nobody doing anything out of line. Remember that you’re cops, not some dickhead rednecks runnin’ around with sheets over your heads.”

  Lynch looked the group over, holding the eyes each time until they looked away.

  “Let’s go.”

  Riley got back into his city car, reached over to the walkie-talkie on the seat, and clicked the send button twice.

  For Zeke Fisher, it felt like the old days in France – or in Korea or Laos or half a dozen other shitholes, for that matter. And the west side of Chicago was about as deep a shithole as any of them. He wore black fatigue pants, a black turtleneck, and a black watch cap. He had burnt cork rubbed onto his face and thin black gloves on his hands. The Walther PPK he’d taken from Stefanski’s house and two extra clips hung in the shoulder holster under his left arm. In his right hand, he held a small penlight. He was flattened in an alcove of the wall of the building
immediately east of the two-flat where the AMN Commando were hiding, watching the side door, waiting for his signal. He heard the walkie-talkie in the pack click twice. Time. He pointed the penlight toward the side door of the house and flashed it.

  The door cracked open. A hand stuck out the door and showed three fingers. Three targets in the house besides Fisher’s guy.

  Fisher stuck the penlight into the cargo pocket of his fatigue pants. In two steps, he reached the waist-high chain link between the properties. He put his left hand on the top of the fence, braced, and swung his legs up and over, landing without a sound. One step and he was at the door.

  Amos Jones waited there, watching Fisher move from the wall to the fence to the door like a damn ghost.

  Jones was a career loser and small-time thief. He’d started hanging with the radical black crowd in ’68 at the convention because it was a good way to meet white college chicks who thought screwing black guys absolved their racial guilt. He’d been in the building when Hampton got killed, Hampton half out of his bedroom, shot but not dead, when some cop just popped him right in the head, easy as that. Getting laid didn’t seem like near enough all of a sudden.

  The cops had smacked him around pretty good, both on the scene and on the way to the station. At the station, they’d left him cuffed to a bench in some cold-ass cement room for a couple of hours, just in his shorts, cause that’s what he’d had on, not even any socks or nothing.

  Then some white guy, guy in a suit and tie, nice looking hat, but lean and with the deepest no-shit eyes Jones had ever seen, walked in the door. He took one look at Jones and then called out into the hall.

  “Officer, please uncuff this gentleman and get him some clothes. I’d like to speak with him.”

  Ten minutes later, Jones was wearing some jail-issue coveralls, sipping on a cup of coffee, and sitting across the table from this guy. Jones was still pissed. He got this thought, just for a second, toss the coffee in the guy’s face, jump the guy, take his chances.

  The guy smiled across the table at him.

  “Mr Jones, if you throw that coffee at me, I’m going to kill you with the cup. I’m not going to tell you how and ruin the surprise, but trust me that it will be unpleasant.”

  Jones figured he should just drink the coffee, see what the man had to say.

  “Mr Jones, let me provide you with a quick philosophical context for our discussion. I have no enmity toward you or your people. I will not abuse your intelligence by trying to convince you that racial enmity played no role in tonight’s proceedings. It did. But it is immaterial to me. I am not a member of the Chicago Police Department or, really, an official appendage of any governmental body, yet I can assure you that I have served this country for nearly thirty years directly at the behest of persons whose power and influence are far beyond your experience. Are we clear so far?”

  Jones knew the guy was talking over his head on purpose, trying to make him feel like shit, but he caught the gist of it. Jones nodded.

  “Good. I also believe that, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, this nation represents that last best hope of mankind. I will do anything necessary to preserve that hope. I believe that Mr Hampton was an honorable man. He believed what he said and fought for what he believed in. But, quite simply, he was on the wrong side of history. His insistence on an adversarial approach to the resolution of racial issues at a time when that approach provided aid and comfort to our Communist enemies amounted, in essence, to treason. And so he was dealt with as a traitor.”

  “Bullshit,” said Jones. The guy stopped and looked at him, waiting. Jones couldn’t think of what else he wanted to say.

  “As difficult as it may be to rebut that well-reasoned argument, Mr Jones, allow me to continue. You are, of course, free to disagree, this being America and your rights being of such paramount concern to me.” The guy stopping for a second to give Jones this cold smile just in case Jones didn’t know bullshit when he heard it. “As I said, I considered Mr Hampton to be an honorable adversary. I do not extend that opinion to you. You, sir, are not an honorable man. You associated yourself with Mr Hampton for the social cachet attached to the movement. You found that being a revolutionary afforded you a degree of respect not attendant to your former activities as a thief and small-time criminal.”

  Jones put up his hand and opened his mouth as if to interrupt, and the white guy stopped, raising his eyebrows. But Jones could think of nothing to say.

  “Yes, quite,” said the white guy. “As I was saying, you attached yourself to the movement not out of any real sense of injustice or commitment but simply for your personal benefit. What I am now going to propose, Mr Jones, is that you act again for your personal benefit.”

  The white guy stopped and looked at Jones expectantly. Jones was pissed, this guy basically calling him a Tom. Jones wanted to scream, get pissed. Mostly he wanted the guy to be wrong. But Jones knew he wasn’t.

  “I’m listening,” said Jones.

  “Excellent, Mr Jones. No tantrums, no half-hearted protestations of bravery or character. Straight to business. You show a very clear grasp of your circumstances. Let’s consider them in particular. At this moment, you have two options. I can wash my hands of your situation and return you to the kind ministrations of the gentlemen who brought you in here. I don’t believe they will kill you in custody, as this evening’s events have created sufficient concerns of a legal nature, but I do believe they will conduct a rather energetic interrogation, which will eventually compel you to confess to some charge along the lines of attempted murder of a police officer, as it is important to the officers just now that someone go on record as having shot at them first. You’ll spend what will likely be a very short life in prison. Does this align with your perspective?”

  The man stopped again, the same expectant look, like he actually wanted to hear what Jones had to say. Jones nodded.

  “Then our opinions of your situation coincide. Your second option is this. You walk out of here now, with me. You will be released back into the wild, as it were, as a hero, the only man to escape the ambush of Fred Hampton, the only witness who can bear the truth to his brothers. No one else will believe you, of course, because the police will swear you were never present. But amongst those of your race, you will be a new hero. You will use the status this grants you to ingratiate yourself to other radicals in the city. From time to time, I will reach out to you, and you will inform me as to their activities and their intentions. In exchange, I will ensure that you do not become a target of Chicago’s finest and that you live in a style you had not heretofore imagined possible. What say you?”

  Jones thought about it. Sell out himself and his brothers for a get out of jail free card and a pile of cash. But the fact was, he’d been selling out himself and his brothers for a couple of years just for the occasional piece of pussy. Figured with the new rep and the new dough, he’d still get the pussy.

  “Guess I say yes,” said Jones.

  When Fisher got to the door, he saw that Jones had remembered his instructions. Jones held one finger to his head and pointed to the room in the southwest corner. Simba was in the back room, alone. Jones held two fingers to his chest and pointed to the room in the front of the building. Two more were up front. And then he pointed to the corner of the small foyer inside the back door. The black Converse All-Stars Jones had worn to Lynch’s house earlier, and to Stefanski’s house before that, were on the floor. Fisher nodded and then tilted his head toward the open door. Time for Jones to go.

  Fisher stepped aside to let Jones pass. As Jones cleared his right shoulder, Fisher’s right arm flashed around Jones’ neck and his left hand clamped to his own right wrist. Fisher tightened the bones in his arm against Jones’ throat, squeezing the ceratoid artery, choking off the blood to Jones’ brain. He held the position until Jones passed out then slowly slid Jones to the floor. He pulled the Walther out of the holster, got Jones’ prints on it, put it back. He picked up one of the All-Stars and dropp
ed it outside the door. He wanted to make sure at least one of the shoes was found in good shape.

  The two guys in front had the couch turned to face the front windows, small black and white TV on a coffee table in front of them, late night movie on, something with a mummy. Guy on the right was bigger, almost a head higher on the couch than the guy on the left, real broad through the shoulders.

  “Egypt in Africa, right?” the one on the right said.

  “Yeah,” answered the other guy.

  “Then I’m pulling for the mummy.”

  “Mummy gonna lose, fool.”

  “Hey, mummy’s a brother.”

  Fisher slid out his sap, a leather tube filled with sand, less than a foot long. Two quiet steps, his arm already swinging, the sap catching the big guy just behind and below the right ear, the guy slumping forward, out cold. Fisher’s arm moving right through, banging the sap hard off the other guy’s forehead. Fisher’s arm shooting past, then swinging back backhanded, catching the smaller guy again on the side of the head, the guy not out but stunned, dropping off the front of the couch to his knees. Fisher swung his leg up, rolled over the couch onto his feet, stepping around behind the guy just as he started to open his mouth to yell. Fisher locking the chokehold on him, pinning his voice in his throat, squeezing him out of consciousness. Fisher propped him back up on the coach, next to the big guy. One more good whack with the sap, behind the ear, to make sure he stayed out long enough.

  Fisher walked back to the corner room, slid the door open, could see James on his side in the bed facing him, blanket half off, his smooth chest rising and falling in the light from the kitchen. Fisher stepped to the bed and sapped him hard, twice, then rolled him off the bed so he’d be under the window. Then Fisher picked up the .45 automatic from the nightstand next to the bed, grabbed both pillows, wadded them tightly against the muzzle of the .45. He fired three shots through the window into the wall of the garage at the back of the property near the alley, and two more into the edge of the window frame. More noise than he’d like, but with the vacant lots around the building, it should be OK. He put the gun down on the floor, put Simba’s hand over it.