Michael lifted his fist to knock a third time, but the door swung back a couple inches before he did.
A gun barrel looked him in the eyes.
Some kind of long revolver. It was that Colt Python Miss Honey loved so much—he was sure of it.
“That’s no way to treat a former guest, is it?” he said.
The door opened a bit further. A woman’s sharp eyes peered at him from the darkness. They lanced him, seeing through any lie he’d try to cover himself in.
A hustler never got hustled.
It was funny, in a way. Miss Honey had a full, feminine face that almost clashed with the severity she carried in her eyes. She looked like the kind of woman who’d get you in more trouble than you bargained for if you let her.
“Michael?” The revolver lowered. “God almighty! Is that you?”
The door flew open. She beamed at him and threw her free arm around his shoulders. She squeezed him so tight, his spine popped.
“Look at you!” Miss Honey said. “I thought you was gone from here for good!”
“I thought I was, too.” He smiled at her to mask his guilt. “I’m glad that didn’t turn out to be true.”
She returned the smile. Her eyes took on a beautiful sparkle after seeing Michael—something that gave hint to the keen mind behind them. To be one of her marks might have almost been worth the heartache and the financial ruin.
“May I come in?” he asked.
“Of course!” She waved him in with the Python. The pistol was almost as big as her arm. “No sense in you standing out in the damn hallway all night, is there?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
The inside of Miss Honey’s apartment was just as he remembered it. On the far wall, beneath a picture window, she had her old RCA Hi-Fi. It looked the same as the day it was fresh off the line in 1973. Her records had been neatly categorized into coffee-colored shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling. There must’ve been a couple hundred at least.
She had the same burnt orange paint on the walls, and the same light green shag carpet. A mural painted by someone who’d come through the halfway house in the eighties still hung off the wall.
“I’m going to get some tea going,” she said. “You care for a cup?” She had her cell phone in-hand. She texted someone.
“I’d love one,” Michael said. “What have you got?”
“Green, chrysanthemum, jasmine, black, and some junk somebody got me from the mall a couple years back that smells like rat poison.”
“I’ll just have the green,” he said.
She smiled and nodded, then held up her phone.
“Was the fella down in the lobby awake when you came in?”
“Yeah.” Michael took a seat on the corduroy couch to his left.
“Good,” she said. “I was worried he wasn’t gonna keep an eye on the door like I told him to. Hard to find somebody worth their salt these days.”
She disappeared behind the partition wall that separated her kitchen from the rest of her apartment.
Michael peeked at her bookshelf. It was packed with all kinds of big, intellectual books—books that made great roach-smashers in a pinch. Stuff by philosophers like Sarte and Nieztche, and big classics like Gone With the Wind. She had smaller books too—he noticed Fahrenheit 451 and The Grapes of Wrath. All the mandatory high school stuff that almost turned him away from novels years ago.
Every book was dog-eared to hell, or had little colored strips of paper popping out of their tops. Who knew what use a woman like Miss Honey had for them.
“I didn’t know you liked Aldous Huxley,” Michael said. “I thought you were more into authors who were a hundred years dead.”
“I like Hemingway,” she said. “He died in the sixties.”
“You know, I almost dropped out of high school when they made us read Brave New World.” He pulled the book off the shelf and flipped through the pages.
“It’s not Huxley’s best book,” Miss Honey said. “I guess I read it because I agreed with the man’s philosophy more than his work.”
“And what philosophy was that?” Michael flipped the book over and glanced at the back cover.
“He was all about treating your fellow human being with proper decency,” she said. “That’s something I can get behind.”
“You always were a bleeding heart,” Michael said. “I never understood why.”
She popped her head around the corner and looked at him with disbelief.
“You benefited from this bleeding heart pretty well.”
He smiled at her.
“You know, on my way up here, I wondered if I’d be able to get a rise out of you as easily as I did three years ago.”
She mock-scowled at him, then disappeared into the kitchen again.
“Read anything published in the last ten years?” Michael asked.
“Nothing worth talking about,” she said. “Just a whole lot of things from people more in love with their words than what they have to say.”
“That’s harsh.”
“You know I don’t pull no punches.”
No, she never did. Except when you had more money than sense—then she’d tell you anything you wanted to hear.
“You been keeping up with your reading like I told you to?” she said.
“I try to.” He put the book back on the shelf.
“Don’t lie to me. You know damn well that anyone who wants to read does it. Anybody who says they try ain’t really trying at all.”
“I missed you lecturing me,” he said. “I’m sorry I showed up like this out of nowhere. I know it wasn’t right to come here in the middle of the night.”
“No apologizing,” Miss Honey said. “When you left, I told you that you was always welcome to stop by any time you wanted. I meant that.”
“I know you did. But I should’ve called or said hello a long time ago.”
She stepped out from her kitchen, two bone-white teacups in hand. She smiled at Michael as she handed one to him.
“You did what you had to do.” She grabbed a bottle of honey and squeezed some into her tea. “And I know you couldn’t have done it here. I’m just glad to see you clean and happy, however that came to you.”
“It took my sister knocking sense into me.”
“Ain’t that how it always is?”
Michael took a sip of his tea.
“Play any good pool halls lately?” he said into his cup.
She lifted her eyes to him and shrugged.
“Some old fellas play in a hall closer to the lake, but they ain’t got a thing on my game. Nice thing about playing them is, any of them get a hot streak and I just throw a little wink their way or drop my neckline a little bit, and that takes care of that.”
“What about the younger ones?” he asked.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“You think I ain’t got what they want?”
He smiled at her.
“A lot of them got more money than sense,” she said. “’Course, most of the same rules apply to them as the old fellas. Probably the only thing a twenty year-old and a fifty year-old got in common is their big head shuts off when their little starts getting ideas.”
Michael couldn’t argue. He held his teacup up, and she clinked hers against his. They both took their sips.
When he lowered his cup, he noticed her staring at him.
“What?” he asked.
She smirked at him.
“I know you didn’t come here at three in the morning to drink tea and talk about me hustling pool halls. So why don’t you just come out with it already?”
“You’re right,” he said. “I came for book chat.”
She laughed. “Boy, I know the only people knocking on that door at this time are fellas looking for booty, or people looking to hear what I have to say.”
“Aren’t I listening to you?”
“You know what I mean.”
He sat his teacup on her coffee table. “
I still can’t get one by you, can I?”
“Nobody can,” she said. “That’s why I’m still here in my ratchety palace.”
“You like this place.”
“That ain’t got nothing to do with why you’re here.”
“No,” he said, “it doesn’t.”
“Then are you gonna ask me what you came to ask me, or do I have to go get my gun from the counter?”
He drummed his fingers on the steel cigarette case in his pocket. Time to put up or shut up.
“Shannon wouldn’t like it if she knew I were here right now.”
“I wouldn’t like it either if I were her,” Miss Honey said. “You were a damn mess when she took you out of here. You couldn’t go a day without sticking a needle in your arm—even if I did get you to stop doing that in my building.”
He chuckled.
“You know how scared I was the first time you caught me shooting up downstairs?” Michael nodded toward her revolver. “I thought you were going to blow my head off.”
“So did I” Miss Honey said. “But I knew by the way you talked, and by the look in your eye, that there was still something in you—that I’d be losing it if I treated you like another broke-down junkie.” She prodded his breastbone with her french-tipped fingernail. “You can’t hide nothing from me.”
Michael wished she was right—that he still had something in him which made him more than another addict. Maybe she was right. He could’ve killed himself a hundred times over with his heroin, and he certainly wanted to at times. But he never did.
“So, what’d you come to ask me?” she said.
“You know anything about a white guy getting shot near 46th and Ashland on Thursday? Over by a liquor store?”
Miss Honey pulled in her lips and leaned back on the couch. She tapped her nails against the porcelain teacup while she thought.
“No,” she said. “No, I ain’t really heard a thing about that.”
She sighed.
“The way the city’s been the last few years…there’s too much happening for me to keep a hold on hardly any of it.”
He should’ve expected that. How many murders had happened already this year? Three hundred and fifty? One woman running a halfway house near Lake Michigan couldn’t possibly keep her fingers in all of it.
“Know anything about a Mexican girl?” Michael asked. “Goes by the name of Isabella Arroz?”
Miss Honey’s lips moved to one side of her face as she put her arm on the back of the couch.
“Now that might be something we can work with,” she said. “That name—Arroz—sounds familiar. What else you know about this girl?”
Michael shrugged. “Practically nothing.”
“Now, I never known that to be true.” She smiled at him. “Plenty of times folk say they don’t know nothing about something, but things start to pop in their head anyhow. I’m sure you know how that is.”
He returned the smile.
“I think she’s got a brother—or a cousin she’s close with,” Michael said. He remembered seeing another man in nearly every picture Colm had with Isabella on his Facebook page. He looked close to her, but not like he was her husband or man-in-waiting.
“He got a face?”
“Yeah,” Michael said. “He’s short, got a shaved head. Looks like a dude who’d stab you if you looked at him when he was in a bad mood. He’s missing part of his left ear.”
Miss Honey snapped her fingers.
“Afonso,” she said.
“You know him?”
“What’s Isabella look like?”
“Tall, thin. She’s got straight, dark hair, and I bet she’d give you a run for your money when it comes to getting men to do what she wants.”
“A Mexican Helen of Troy,” Miss Honey said. “I seen her.”
Michael could hardly believe it. Surely she had to be thinking of someone else.
“How do you know it was her?”
“I wouldn’t forget somebody like her,” she said. “She should be laying out on some rich fella’s cabin cruiser in New Buffalo. Instead, I seen her hanging out at the clubs with Afonso. Only caught her first name at the time.”
“So?” Michael asked. “How you are so sure the girl you saw wasn’t some other Isabella?”
“When you been around those places as long as I have,” Miss Honey said, “you see crowds come and go. You get to know people’s faces and names and habits. Afonso puts the moves on any girl inside a drink’s throw of him—and he ain’t always nice about it neither.”
Miss Honey grinned. Something told Michael she had a little first-hand experience with Afonso’s moves.
“He ain’t ever done that to this girl Isabella, though. He’s always holding the door for her, chasing other fellas away, and talking real gentle to her,” Miss Honey said. “That’s how I know they’re each other’s people.”
Michael considered Miss Honey’s story. How many thousands of faces made their way through her halfway house at some point? He’d bet his life that she remembered them all.
The chances that she was mistaken about Isabella Arroz and this guy Afonso being related were almost non-existent.
Still…
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“Boy, you can’t be knowing people like I do and forget a face,” she said. “That’s bad business.”
Not a hint of doubt in her voice.
“Okay. So what do you know about Afonso?”
“He ain’t a dude most people want to trifle with,” she said. “But on the other hand, you ain’t, either.”
“Those are all just rumors.”
“I’m betting more than a couple are true.” She held her gaze on him for a moment.
He looked over at her record collection.
“Afonso is a hustler,” she said. “He runs a set for the Kings. Folks say he and his boys hang out in some house near 44th and Wood. I ain’t been over there.”
Michael nodded. “How many guys with him?”
“I dunno,” she shrugged. “Probably four or five he actually deals with, maybe a dozen or two who just come and go—you know how it is. All I got for sure is his people are in drugs. They got a couple arsons behind them—a few bodies, too—but mostly drugs.”
Aside from the arsons, Afonso and his clique sounded pretty average to Michael. Nothing to be scared of.
“You hear anything about him working with a white kid named Colm?”
“Nothing pops up in my head.”
He didn’t think she would know, but he had to ask.
Then, Miss Honey’s face darkened.
“Hold on.” Her eyebrows pushed together. “You ain’t talking about Ewan Keane’s boy, are you?”
Michael nodded. “He was the kid shot near 46th and Ashland.”
Miss Honey flopped back into the couch like she’d almost fainted.
She sat up.
“You’re telling me that the son of an Irish Mobster got popped on the South Side?”
“That’s what my sister tells me,” Michael said.
“Why ain’t you say that when you knocked on the door?” She moved her hands and her head—she was animated when she was mad. “They’re gonna come down here looking for answers from somebody—and people around here ain’t really want to talk to none of them.”
“You’re talking to me,” Michael said.
“Don’t make a joke.” She slapped his knee. “They’re gonna drop bodies while they look for answers. And they ain’t gonna stay up that way when they do it. They’re gonna tear up every neighborhood from Humboldt to Hammond, and I care about those places. Good people live there. I know you and everyone else in this city don’t believe that, but I do.”
“That’s what I’m trying to avoid,” Michael said. “I have it on good authority the Irish mob is going to let CPD handle Colm’s murder, but you and I both know their patience will only last so long.”
“Boy, don’t come in here and try to pass me lies!”
&nb
sp; “I don’t want to see anyone innocent get hurt,” he said. “You might not believe it, but you rubbed off on me more than you realize.”
She looked at him with mistrust in her eyes.
“Boy, I know you’re working with Keane again,” she said. “That’s your ‘good authority,’ ain’t it?”
The words came at him like a slap across his cheek. He almost didn’t know how to handle it. But if Miss Honey was half as good at detecting lies as she claimed to be, she’d believe him if he told the truth.
“I’m not working for him,” he said. “Not anymore.”
“Then why are you so worried about his boy?”
“Look,” Michael said, “I’m not going back to working with him or any of his associates ever again. You think I did heroin because I liked myself back then?”
“You tell me.”
“I’ve learned a lot about what it means to be an addict. I know there’s an inner addict in me, and that son of a bitch wants me to melt my brains out of my ears. I know the only way he gets control of me is if I go back to working for Keane and all the other bosses. I’m never doing that again.”
Miss Honey tilted her head back. She dissected him with her eyes. He could feel her pulling apart his shell, all the things he hid himself beneath, on her way to getting at what laid underneath.
“Then why’d you come here right now?” she asked. “From where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re about two steps away from your old life.”
“No,” Michael said, “I’m not. It’s different this time.”
“It ain’t no different.” Miss Honey shook her head and laughed. “You’re always who you are.”
Maybe she had a point. Why was this any different? Was he doing this just to grab another cheap thrill he’d denied himself the past few years?
“I said you can’t get nothing past me.”
“It’s the truth. I’m not doing this for myself anymore,” he said. “I’m doing this to help Shannon.”
CHAPTER 15
Father John Misty’s album, I Love You, Honeybear, helped Shannon work through her hangover the morning after Colm’s wake. She sat at her desk in the Violent Crimes Unit bullpen at the CPD office over on Blue Island Avenue.
She tried her best to focus on her computer screen. She had a slew of reports and notes to file about the murder scene itself—not to mention their search of Colm’s house.
Chicago Blood: Detective Shannon Rourke Book 1 Page 10
