“And you think that’s where these guys live?”
“I think it’s worth a shot. You nose around where they’ve been…” I shrugged. “Maybe they left some footprints.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Hubert said. “Let’s get going.”
“One more thing. Last time I asked you to help, there was no real danger. Not so here. These guys like to kil, and they’re pretty good at it.”
Hubert didn’t seem impressed. Then I told him the rest of it: the brown package, the Iliad, and my trip into the underworld from the night before.
“This guy actual y set you up?” Hubert said.
I nodded.
“And shot at you?”
“That was the general idea I got, yes.”
“Wow. Are you going to report the body?”
“If they don’t find it soon enough, I’l make a cal.”
“But, for now, you want to keep the package to yourself?”
I smiled. “It was sent to me. I’d like to figure out what it means. So, yes, the package stays between us.”
I pul ed out the cardboard cutout of the black train over yel ow. “This was in there along with the book and the map. I’m thinking it’s some sort of logo, but I can’t place it.”
Hubert picked up the cutout and studied it. “Mind if I hang on to this for a while?”
“So you’re stil interested?”
“I said I was.” Hubert kicked at the pile of documents I had stacked under the table. “Now, when are you going to tel me about al of this?”
I pul ed up the files I’d gotten from Jim Doherty. “You’re a smart kid.”
Hubert had his eyes fixed on the files. “Yeah, yeah. So what surprises do we have here?”
CHAPTER 21
I’d just opened one of the files when Rodriguez walked through Filter’s front door. I waved him over. “I told the detective to meet us here.”
Hubert shrugged. “Cool.”
Rodriguez slid into the booth beside Hubert. “What’s up, kid? Whoa, what happened to the face?”
I thought Hubert might just get up and leave. He smiled instead. “Hi, Detective. How are you?”
Rodriguez looked over to me and back to Hubert. Then he noticed the old files piled up at my elbow.
“What are those?”
Hubert began to type on his laptop. “That is Mr. Kel y’s backstory and the reason why we’re al here this morning. Would you like to listen now or do you need coffee first?”
Rodriguez got his coffee from the waitress, who wasn’t any nicer to him, badge and al. Then he turned his attention to me.
“None of this goes to the task force,” I said. “Not until we figure out if there’s anything worth looking at.”
Rodriguez waved a hand. I tipped open a file and kept talking.
“Thirty years ago, an L train crashed in the Loop. Four cars derailed and wound up in the street. Eleven people were kil ed.”
I threw a spray of old news clips onto the table. Rodriguez picked one up and began to read.
“The anniversary date was yesterday, February fourth,” I said. “The crash happened at the corner of Lake and Wabash, site of yesterday’s sniper shooting.”
Rodriguez looked up. “You been saving al this?”
“I got a pal, retired cop named Jim Doherty. You know him?”
Rodriguez shook his head.
“He was a rookie in ’80. Worked the tracks as they pul ed bodies out of the cars. Everyone has a case that stays with them. For Jim, this was it. Keeps in touch with the families. Remembers the anniversary. Al that stuff. We used to talk about the case when I was on the force.”
“Doesn’t make sense,” Rodriguez said. “Why would anyone start shooting up the L thirty years after the fact? And how does Southport fit? Most important, why put the bul ’s-eye on you?” The cop took a sip of his coffee. “Too many loose ends.”
“There’s more,” I said and pul ed out another news clipping. It was a shot of the Lake Street elevated, moments after the crash. Below lay a tangle of fire trucks, ambulances, and cops surrounding four derailed cars: one lying on its side on Lake Street; one crushing the roof of two parked cars; the other two dangling in that rarefied air, halfway between the tracks and street below.
“I never told Doherty about this.” I shrugged. “Not sure why, but I guess I never told anyone.”
“Told anyone what?” Rodriguez said.
I tapped my finger lightly on the faded photo. “I was in that one right there.”
THE TRAIN TOOK the curve and I felt it in my stomach. I’d never felt that before, not on this curve, and my nine-year-old brain told me something might be wrong. Wheels chattered high and tight against the steel tracks as the weight of the car fought to swing out over Lake Street. An old lady near the front fell into the aisle with a crack that might have been her wrist. She screamed and someone else screamed to echo her. A man moved to help the lady on the floor. I watched him grasp her upper arm and then they both looked up. I pulled my eyes up, too, just in time to watch us barrel into a second train sitting immobile at the very center of the curve.
The noise went on forever, a grinding and tearing of metal on metal. This was what a crash sounded like. From the inside out. I slammed into a steel post and rolled across the floor. I blinked away the blood and felt the rip in my forehead. It hurt to stand up, but I did and climbed back toward my seat. Most everyone else was still on the floor. I was sure they were hurt, but there was precious little room for thought as our train continued its climb up the back of the first. Then the noise stopped. Whispers of pain began to bleed through the shock. I looked back toward the thin man. He was out cold, a small gash near his temple and a smear of blood against the window. I grinned to myself. Even at nine, I knew a silver lining when I saw one. I stepped back into the aisle just as another surge of power ran through the train and up into the soles of my sneakers. Once, twice, five times in all, our train seemed to buck and actually accelerate into the train it had already mangled. Each time the accordion effect caused the car we were in to bend and flex. The fifth time was the charm. Our car popped off the tracks, pitched to the left, and fell over the side, toward the street twenty-five feet below.
“HUH.” Rodriguez looked at me and waited.
“I was just a kid,” I said. “There were a lot of people inside. A few of them died. Most of us got out okay.”
“You know anyone who was in the car with you?” Rodriguez said. “Anyone who might hold a grudge?”
I held up a finger. “I knew one person, but he’s dead.”
“You sure?” the detective said.
I nodded and half smiled. “It was my old man. He was a conductor on the car that night.”
I WOKE UP in darkness, staring down at a strip of white crosswalk painted across Lake Street and crosshatched by a tangle of girders. I tried to stand up and realized that wasn’t going to be easy. My feet were above my head, which was jammed into a corner near the rear door of the train. I pushed myself slowly away from the gash that had opened up in the floor and began to crawl up the aisle, toward the back of the car. Two seats away, the thin man was slumped forward now, his body silhouetted by a splash of light sifting down from the tracks. I crawled a little closer. His forehead was caved in, long nose split to the bone. There was a soup of blood and tissue pooled on the seat and his mouth creaked open at the jaw. I looked to the back of the car. There was no one there, just a connecting door standing open and an empty seat where my father had been sitting. I moved toward the door, looking for my own way out. Maybe I moved too fast because the car began to groan in the wind. I froze and the train settled again. I could hear sirens in the distance and then a voice, close by and behind me.
“Help.”
I SHRUGGED and took a sip of coffee. “They lifted me out of the car and put me in an ambulance. Never talked to my old man about any of it-that sounds strange, but you had to know my old man. Never saw anyone else from the train, none of the passeng
ers, ever again.”
Rodriguez scratched his chin and picked through the old files. “And you’re thinking this is too much coincidence?”
“Once the kil er drew me into the case, yeah, that’s exactly what I thought.”
“But you have no actual connections to what happened yesterday? No one that’s alive, anyway?”
I glanced toward Hubert, who was watching closely. “That’s where the computer kid comes in. He’s going to develop a program that assumes I’m the target and analyzes the data accordingly.”
The detective looked up. “What in hel does that mean?”
“It means,” Hubert said, “that I take al the information in these files, plus al the current case information you can get me, and see if any of it ties into Mr. Kel y. Compare names, dates, cases he worked. Things like that.”
Rodriguez sighed. “Seems pretty thin.”
“It’s a hunch,” I said. “Nothing more.”
Rodriguez finished his coffee just as the check arrived. “How long wil you take to get up and running?”
“I already am.” Hubert smiled. “I hacked into the task force data bank last night and sucked up most of your initial data. Police reports, al that stuff.”
“Motherfucker.”
“Thanks, Detective. You guys leave me alone and I might have some ideas for you this afternoon.”
“Let’s go,” I said. “Take care of those files, Hubert.”
The kid nodded and was already tapping away on his laptop as we left.
CHAPTER 22
Rodriguez put his car in gear and slipped into the morning rush. “What’s up with the old files?”
“You don’t buy it?”
“I think there’s more than just a hunch behind whatever it is you’re thinking.”
I shrugged. “Don’t give me too much credit. Like I said, the feds got al the conventional angles covered.”
“And you’re just rol ing the dice?”
“From my talk with the mayor, sounds like that’s what he wants.”
Rodriguez pul ed up to a red light. “What the mayor wants, Kel y, is no more bodies and a bul et in the head of whoever the fuck is behind this.”
The light turned green and Rodriguez pushed through the intersection. “So your old man was on the train with you?”
“That’s right.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not real y.”
Rodriguez grunted and took a left on Ashland. We drove in silence for a few blocks.
“Where we headed?” I said.
“I told you. Lawson wants us to meet her at the Southport L.”
“Are they opening it up today?”
“Wilson insisted. Business as usual.”
I turned on the radio. The first words I heard were “CTA sniper.” I flipped to another channel and found a woman talking about the CTA “war zone.” I flipped again. CNN was promoting its special, “A City under Siege.” Wolf Blitzer would broadcast live from the scene of the sniper shooting downtown. I turned off the radio. “Business as usual, huh?”
“You know the rules. If the mayor says the sky is purple and the earth is flat, hel, let’s make the best of it. By the way, what happened to the kid’s face?”
“Got beat up,” I said.
Rodriguez glanced over. “You want me to check it out?”
“What do you think?”
“I can touch base with Hate Crimes.”
“I’m guessing their plate’s ful.”
“You got that right. I’l take a run through their open files. See if anything looks familiar.” Rodriguez took a right onto Belmont and then a left onto Southport. The L tracks loomed overhead. “Here we are.”
The detective slotted his Crown Vic at an angle to the curb, ass end taking up almost half the street. I climbed out of the car and noticed a guy in a Beemer behind us. He looked like he was going to rol down the window and start something. Then Rodriguez popped his blue flashers and slipped out the driver’s side. The guy swal owed the half dozen or so “fuck you”s he had lined up and maneuvered his car around us. Rodriguez took no notice.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The detective walked toward the L station. I fol owed. Life could be good in Chicago, especial y when you carried a badge and a gun.
CHAPTER 23
The Southport L station was nothing more than a box of wood with a couple of turnstiles, machines where you could buy a train pass, and a smal booth for the CTA lifer, who was typical y skil ed at yawning and looking bored. Today was no exception.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” Rodriguez flipped open his badge. The woman inside pul ed her eyes up off her morning Sun-Times.
“Seen plenty of those today, honey.” She smiled and winked at me. Maybe because I didn’t flash any tin. Then she popped open a gate beside the turnstile. Rodriguez shouldered his way through.
“I’l be right up,” I said. The detective grunted and started to climb the stairs. I turned back to the woman, who used long purple fingernails to turn the pages of her paper. She settled on something that looked suspiciously like Michael Sneed’s column.
“Not too busy today?” I said. It was half past nine, stil rush hour, and I hadn’t seen a commuter yet. The woman snorted, but didn’t bother to look up. “Been here three hours, sweetie. Usual y have maybe a thousand come through by this time of morning. Another five hundred by noon. Today…”
The woman looked over at a computer screen and hit a few buttons.
“A hundred thirty-five so far. That doesn’t include cops.” She nodded in the direction of the departed Rodriguez. “Hel, we got more cops up there than commuters. That’s for damn sure.”
“You here yesterday?” I said.
“Already told your pals. Didn’t see much. Just a single pop and a lot of screaming.”
“Pretty big deal, huh?”
The woman shrugged. “I live on the South Side, honey. We get people shot up al day, every day.” She moved her eyes to the right. For the first time I noticed a smal TV. It had the sound turned down and was tuned to Fox’s morning news. The extended edition.
“My neighbor has a little girl,” the woman said. “Hit by a bul et last summer while she was sitting on her living room floor, putting together a goddamn jigsaw puzzle. Girl’s ten years old and gonna spend
the rest of her days strapped to a bed. You hear about that on the TV?”
I shook my head. The woman was awake now. Maybe more than I needed, but there it was.
“That’s ’cuz it wasn’t on the TV. Not so you’d notice, anyway. Listen, I feel bad for that poor woman yesterday. And the girl downtown. I’l pray for them and theirs. But, goddamn, they got an army walking those tracks.”
She dropped her eyes to the little screen again. I did the same. A reporter with plastic hair and a freshly painted grin stood at the corner of Eighteenth and Halsted, in the heart of Pilsen. Behind him, kids flashed gang signs and mugged for the camera.
“That’s al they talking about this morning. Hispanics gonna demand some answers.”
“Hispanics?” I said.
“Sure. The lady up on the platform yesterday was Hispanic. So was the girl downtown. Hispanics say it’s a conspiracy. City doesn’t give a damn.”
The woman in the CTA booth opened her mouth and laughed. Not a pretty, musical laugh, but harsh. A twisted and cramped sort of thing. Fil ed with anger. Fil ed with payback.
“City doesn’t give a damn about Hispanics. Shit, Hispanics don’t know nothin’ ’bout being nothin’. Come down to my neighborhood. Don’t get no army of cops down there when the black girl gets shot.”
The woman was right, at least from where she sat. But there wasn’t anything I could do about it, and we both knew it. So she just shook her head.
“The hel am I tel ing you for? You a cop. You know how it is.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s okay for you. Heading up?”
I
nodded. She popped the gate a second time and I walked through it. The woman went back to her paper, clicking her nails and humming softly to herself.
Up on top, the platform was deserted-that is, if you didn’t count the twelve cops stationed on both sides of the tracks. A uniform stopped me as I got to the top of the stairs.
“I’m going to have to give you a quick pat down, sir.”
“No kidding.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You going to do this with every person taking the L today?”
I saw a touch of anger in the eyes, a flare of the nostrils. A lot of cops don’t like it when people ask them questions, especial y when they have someone running around shooting people for no apparent reason.
“Yes, sir,” the cop said. “Until we get some metal detectors, it’s going to be a pat down for every person who wants to ride the train.”
I wondered who came up with that bril iant idea, but decided to keep the rest of my thoughts to myself. “I’m here with Detective Rodriguez,” I said.
“Got a nine mil imeter on my hip. The license to carry it is in my back pocket.”
The cop took a half step back at the mention of a gun and jerked his hand toward his shoulder mike. I pointed to Rodriguez who had his back to me, about twenty yards down the platform.
“That’s Detective Rodriguez right there. Why don’t you cal him over?”
“Yes, sir, please keep your hands where I can see them.” The uniform hadn’t pul ed his gun yet and shot me, but I figured it to be just a matter of time. Fortunately, Rodriguez picked that moment to turn around.
“He’s with me, Officer.” Rodriguez motioned me in. The cop studied the detective. Then he stepped aside and I walked across the platform.
“Nice atmosphere up here today,” I said.
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know, but this isn’t going to work.”
“You haven’t seen the worst.” Rodriguez walked me over to the railing. From Southport the elevated tracks snaked due east, bending down al eys and across people’s backyards, before turning south toward the Loop.
The Third Rail mk-3 Page 7
