The bartender stopped moving.
“Then the guy he’s meeting comes in. They talk for a minute, while they’re at the bar. You offer them drinks, and before they order, they both put their guns on the bar itself. One of them asks you to hold the guns until they’re done—a gesture of good faith—which you agree to do because you’ve done it before.”
The bartender turned around. He looked shocked.
“So why don’t you give the gun to me?” I asked. “Because if you don’t, someone’s gonna take it, file off the serial numbers and use it on some poor unsuspecting kid down here. You know it, and I know it.”
I wasn’t going to accuse him of wanting to pawn the gun. I was certain that hadn’t crossed his mind—yet. Although it would when the cops wouldn’t press him for the weapon.
“You said you’re not a cop,” the bartender said.
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m a friend, so I actually have an interest in solving this.”
The bartender glanced sideways at Sinkovich. “You a cop?”
“Maybe not after today,” he said.
“Why don’t you get me two evidence bags, Jack?” I said.
“What?”
“It’ll only take you a minute,” I said.
“I don’t think I should leave you—”
“I’ve already caused my trouble for the afternoon,” I said, deliberately misunderstanding him. “If you get me the bags, you can take the gun and Truman’s coat to property, put it in a box, and retrieve it if we need it for evidence.”
“Shit,” Sinkovich said. “You’d never make it in the Chicago P.D., you know that? You’re too by-the-book.”
But he went, sprinting out of the tavern, and hurrying up the stairs.
“You’re by-the-book?” the bartender asked.
“No,” I said. “I just figured you might talk a little more if you aren’t worried about a badge listening in.”
“How do I know you’re not one?” he asked.
“I’m a half-assed private detective, not even good enough to get licensed. You can check up on me if you want. My name’s Bill Grimshaw.”
He frowned. “Related to Franklin Grimshaw?”
Only by fictional bloodlines. But I never admitted that. “Cousins.”
“Your cousin is one of the reasons my dad had this bar to leave us,” the bartender said. “You got proof that you’re related?”
“I’ve got a driver’s license with my name on it,” I said—and I had paid well for that. It was as real as a license could be, even though it didn’t list Smokey Dalton as my name. It called me William S. Grimshaw. “Otherwise, you’ll have to call Franklin.”
The bartender bent his fingers twice in a show-it gesture. I leaned forward, pulled out my wallet, and flipped it open to the license. He studied it, and then he sighed.
“I don’t know the name of the guy he met with,” the bartender said. “But I will tell you this. They didn’t like each other at all.”
“I figured that from the guns,” I said.
“It was a setup. These things always are. Those goddamn kids aren’t human anymore. Or maybe they never were. They think the whole thing is a game.”
“He met with a kid?” I asked.
“Oh, no. That guy was an adult. But the kids are the shooters. Two of them on a bike, one on the handlebars with a shotgun wrapped in a towel. And they’re deadly shots, too, close range. I never know who’s gonna get hit.”
“But you know a hit’s coming?”
The bartender shook his head. “I try not to pay attention. We actually remodeled the bar so that it’s in this corner. See nothing, do nothing, have no fucking liability.”
I studied him, feeling my stomach turn. But I was better at hiding my expression than he was.
“Usually,” the bartender said, leaning across the bar, his voice low even though we were alone, “they get them out of here by promising dope. You know, saying let’s meet the dealer outside—he hates coming inside where people can see him, that sort of thing.”
The bartender wiped part of the surface, then frowned.
“It took me a while to catch onto that, but I did. And if someone says something like that now, I try to convince them not to go out. Some folks trust me. The rest think I’m a narc.” He shrugged. “You do what you can.”
If, I supposed, tolerating gangs and drugs and murders for hire in exchange for a small inheritance made you feel like you were doing something.
“Your guy, though, I don’t know what the other guy promised him. They were over at that table.” The bartender waved his hand toward one of the tables beneath the alpine meadows posters.
I looked, trying to imagine them there. It would have been a squeeze for Johnson if he sat between the table and the wall. If he took the other chair, though, he would have fit just fine. That implied—although I couldn’t be certain—that the other guy was thinner, smaller.
“The next thing I know,” the bartender said, “they were walking out the front door. Your friend calls to me, says they’ll be right back.”
“Who’s first?” I asked.
“How’s that?”
“Who was first out the door?”
“Couldn’t see it. Would’ve thought the other guy, because your friend waved to me, but don’t know that for sure.”
I nodded.
“All I know,” the bartender said, “is they left their guns and coats.”
“You have both guns?” I asked.
“Not anymore. The other guy came back in, got his coat, got his gun, and was outta here like a shot.”
“Which way did he leave?” I asked.
The bartender grabbed a glass, and scooped some ice into it. “Dunno.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? You were right here. You gave him his gun.”
“And I make it a habit not to look too hard at anything,” the bartender said. “I already gave you more than I’d give most.”
He filled the glass with a soft drink and downed it. Then he filled the glass again.
“You want something?” he asked me.
“Just my friend’s gun.”
He made a face, then grabbed the bar rag and reached under the bar. He lifted the gun, wrapped in the rag, and set it on the bar just as Sinkovich came back down the stairs.
His skin had turned a sallow yellowish-green. I’d never seen a human being that color.
“They’re taking Johnson out,” Sinkovich said, handing me the evidence bags. “No one saw me get these.”
He must have stopped and watched them remove the body.
“It’s bad, huh,” I said.
“It didn’t look that bad when we got there, but Holy Christ, the front of him…” Sinkovich shuddered.
“The rain cleaned most of it up,” I said. “We were lucky.”
Although I didn’t truly believe that. If the rain hadn’t fallen so heavily and so hard, cleaning the sidewalks and everything around, then I might have gotten a few more answers from Yancy and Jump. Just from the way they looked, and from their shoes. I hadn’t noticed anything on their shoes.
“That the gun?” Sinkovich asked.
I nodded.
“Let’s bag this stuff and leave before we get into more trouble.” He reached for the gun, but I pushed his hand away. He wasn’t thinking clearly, and he wasn’t going to be cautious.
I slid the rag toward me, then used it to pick up the gun. I put them both in the evidence bag. Then I pulled the rag out before we sealed the bag.
“Better label it,” I said.
“Got a pen?” Sinkovich asked the bartender.
I took the other evidence bag to the coat tree and pulled down the jacket. It was clearly big enough to be Johnson’s, although I hadn’t seen him wear one like it.
While Sinkovich was preoccupied with labeling the evidence bag, I went through the coat’s pockets. I found two gum wrappers, a movie ticket, matches from Mr. Kelly’s, and thirty-five cents. In the other po
cket, I found a bank withdrawal slip with numbers handwritten in ballpoint in the columns, and a torn piece of paper with part of an address on it.
I pocketed all of it before tucking the coat into the other evidence bag.
Sinkovich hadn’t noticed. He was writing on the first bag, and cursing because the pen didn’t work the way he wanted it to. I tossed the other bag at him.
“Better do that one, too.”
“Who died and made you God?” he asked, but he did it.
The bartender watched us. When Sinkovich handed him the pen back, the bartender said, “You guys aren’t gonna shut me down, are you?”
“Have we in the past?” Sinkovich asked.
The bartender shook his head.
“Then we ain’t now.” Sinkovich stuck the bags under his slicker and turned to me. “We’re leaving, Grimshaw. I ain’t taking no for an answer this time.”
“Fine,” I said.
I let him lead the way up the stairs. The tent was gone, and the medical examiner’s truck had left as well. There was a trail of blood across the sidewalk, and a large stain in the center that was spreading.
Rain dripped from the sky. Dark clouds rolled in, promising yet another downpour.
A few cops remained, mostly picking up after themselves. I didn’t see Yancy or his friend Jump.
The black uniformed officer hung near the stairs. As I reached the top, he caught my arm.
“Word?” he said.
“Jack,” I said, mostly because I didn’t want to say no to the uniform, but I didn’t want to get too close without some backup. “Be right there.”
“Jesus, Grimshaw, I said we was leaving.” Sinkovich turned, saw the uniform’s hand on my sleeve, and grimaced. “Fifteen seconds. I swear to God that’s all you got.”
He was standing awkwardly, almost as if the evidence bags were weighing him down. At that moment, I wished that I had taken them.
I slid my sleeve out of the young cop’s grasp. “I guess we got fifteen seconds,” I said.
He looked both ways before speaking. “What you said about the kids, the logic?”
“Yeah?”
“You believe that?”
“Do you?” I asked.
He glanced at the stain. “I was second squad to arrive. Just before the downpour. There was blood and guts and everything all over everywhere. Then the skies open, and it looked, for a minute, like something out of the Bible. A river of blood.”
I couldn’t help myself. I shivered.
“I start going for the trace, I mean, it’s a crime scene, right? And no one else does. They already know what happened, they figure they’re not gonna get the exact kids, and they don’t really care.” He looked back at me. He wasn’t much older than Malcolm. “But it’s a cop. They should care, right?”
“What’s your name, son?” I asked.
“LeRoy DeVault,” he said, tapping his badge. “Officer DeVault.”
“Well, Officer DeVault,” I said, giving him the respect of his title, “you’re right. They should care about every corpse they find, not just a cop’s. Doesn’t mean they will.”
He frowned and glanced at the spot on the sidewalk, the stain of blood, cloth, and tissue that was the only evidence of Truman Johnson’s murder.
“So how come you care?” he asked. “Because he was your friend?”
I studied the young officer for a moment, wondering if I had ever had that same mixture of naïveté and cynicism, that same wary look that dared me to chip away at his innocence.
But he wasn’t asking me about his innocence. He was asking me about my own reasons for barging into a crime scene even though I wasn’t a cop, for taking evidence and trying to force others to be more professional.
My own motives were so complicated, I wasn’t sure I could explain them to myself.
“I don’t know if you could ever have called us friends,” I said to DeVault. “I’m not sure either of us would have been happy with that label.”
I gave him a rueful smile, and then I turned away, hurrying down the sidewalk after Sinkovich. When I reached the car, the heavens opened, and the deluge started again.
TWENTY-ONE
“WHAT THE HELL am I supposed to do with this stuff?” Sinkovich asked as we pulled out.
He was driving even though the rain was coming down so hard the windshield was a sheet of water. All I could see was the reflected lights from streetlights that had come on due to the afternoon’s darkness.
“Shouldn’t we pull over?” I asked.
“We’re getting the hell out of this neighborhood.” Sinkovich reached under his coat and pulled out the evidence bags. He steered with one hand, using the other to toss the bags into the backseat.
I longed to reach over and grab the steering wheel myself, but I didn’t. That would be even more dangerous than Sinkovich’s blind drive.
We swerved under the El tracks and for a blessed moment, we could see. We were the only people on the road. Water flowed around us. The gutters had backed up, unable to take the excessive rain, and garbage swirled in the headlights.
“The car’s going to stall,” I said.
“We’re not gonna stall,” he said, and turned right. The car’s wheels slid—we were hydroplaning—but we didn’t stall.
The sheets of water coated us again, and Sinkovich leaned forward, as if getting closer to the windshield would help.
“I don’t know why I do these things,” he said. “My wife, she says I got a death wish, and I’m beginnin’ to believe her. I think, Grimshaw’s gonna be upset when he hears about Johnson. I’ll take him to the site, maybe he’ll see a few things, tell me later. Instead, you take on the Red Squad, for chrissake, and then one of the assistant chiefs whose been gunnin’ for me ever since last winter shows up just as you drag us into that fuckin’ tavern. We pull evidence from the scene—”
“No one else had taken it,” I said.
Sinkovich turned his head toward me, nearly hitting his chin on the steering wheel because he had been sitting so low. The car swerved again, and he didn’t seem to notice.
“Maybe they hadn’t thought of it yet,” he said. “Maybe they’ll be back and maybe that creep of a bartender’ll tell ’em we got the goddamn evidence for a case that ain’t even ours.”
“Maybe we should pull over.”
He glared at me, still not looking at the road. “Maybe you should stop being such a pussy.”
“Maybe you should take your own advice.”
“Jesus.” He swung the car toward the curb—or where I thought the curb was—and we fishtailed again. The wheels bumped something solid, and for a brief moment, the windshield cleared.
We were on the sidewalk which was, fortunately, empty.
“I don’t wanna hear it,” he said and drove back into the street.
Thunder boomed overhead and lightning flashed almost at the same moment. And then the rain became hail, pounding on the car like a hundred angry fists.
He yanked the steering wheel to the left and swung under the El tracks again. The hood of the car had hail melting in the middle of a dozen tiny dents.
“Just what I need.” He made a fist and rested it against the steering wheel.
“At least it didn’t dent the windshield,” I said.
“You shut up,” he said. “I don’t need any more mouth from you.”
The hail pelted the ground around us, missing us. Another car crawled by, its back window shattered. No one else was on the street.
Thunder boomed again, but it didn’t sound as close. Gradually, the hail stopped.
Sinkovich ran a hand over his face. He didn’t move the car.
“What’m I supposed to do with those fuckin’ bags?” he asked. “They’re like a confession that I’ve been tampering with a crime scene.”
“You already labeled what they are, right?” I asked.
“The case don’t have a number yet, at least that I know of. I just marked what they are and where I found them.�
�
“Good,” I said. “Put the wrong case number on them.”
“Oh, yeah, so some prosecutor can find them when he goes to trial on that other case.”
“He won’t,” I said. “You already told me he won’t.”
“What are you talking about?” Sinkovich frowned at me.
“Put the baby’s case number on them, and put them in Property. Then you and I will know where they are if we need them.”
“Why would ‘we’ need them?” Sinkovich asked. “You gonna track some gang kids down yourself?”
“If I have to,” I said.
“And then what? I get in trouble again with the department for messing in a case that’s not mine, you draw attention to yourself which, forgive me, I thought you didn’t want after some of the stuff I heard you say over the last few months. And for what? What’re we gonna gain? Truman Johnson was a victim in a goddamn war, and that’s all. He’s just one of the opening shots.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think this is a war.”
“Then you’re fuckin’ blind,” Sinkovich said. “What do you think that order was to allow cops to carry bigger guns? It was a volley. There’ve been over a hundred and fifty shootings down here since January, and a bunch of kids murdered. Truman ain’t the first cop to die down here this year, and he ain’t gonna be the last.”
“So we should just let it go?” I asked.
“I don’t wanna volunteer to become a target, do you?” Sinkovich said.
“That’s not it, is it?” I asked. “What else is going on, Jack? What aren’t you telling me?”
He closed his mouth and turned his head toward the window. The sun was shining through the El tracks now, illuminating the wet streets. Water was still backed up in the grates, but it only swirled along the curbs, not in the middle of the street.
“I been hearin’ talk, okay?” he said.
“What kind of talk?”
“Rumors, and you can ask all you want, but I dunno where they’re comin’ from. Could be anywhere.”
“All right,” I said.
He sighed, and looked at me. His face was lined with streaky light from the window. “Policies ain’t been workin’ and the gangs are gettin' big. There’s four thousand people in the Stones, and that’s conservative. Then the Panthers come in, and they’re talkin about killin’ cops, which we don’t take too kindly to.”
Stone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 25
