Stone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  Then I drove the car to the middle of the bridge, and stopped.

  The storms had passed long ago, but the clouds still covered everything. It was one of the darkest nights of the year. Rain dribbled onto the windshield, almost as if it were pretending to be spray from the filthy river below.

  First, I unlatched the car door so that I could push it open with my hip. Then I reached under the driver’s seat without looking down. I opened the bag, took out my gloves, and turned them right-side-out again as I put them on.

  My gloved fingers were clumsy, and I couldn’t take the package out by itself, like I had planned. Instead, I grabbed the entire bag, and holding it tightly, got out of the car.

  I did not shut off the ignition, nor did I let the car door close all the way. I walked to the edge of the bridge as I reached inside the bag, my fingers hitting the spoons, causing them to clank.

  The rain ping-pinged on the concrete. My boots made a hushing sound as I moved, and I could hear my own breathing. I tried to keep it quiet, but I was having trouble.

  Of all the risky things I had done in the last six months, this one felt the most dangerous.

  The bag crinkled as I reached inside it and pulled out the package. I reached inside the slit I had made earlier and ripped the package open all the way. The last thing I wanted this package to do was float.

  I held the package over the water. My hands were shaking. I turned the package upside down, heroin spilling from it, somehow missing the bridge—and, I hoped, me.

  I leaned as far forward as I could—and flung the package as hard as possible.

  The package soared through the air, the brown wrapping looking white against the darkness. The heroin spilled like rain from the package’s gut, creating an arc that stayed in the air long after the package vanished into the blackness below me.

  I never did hear a splash.

  Then I upended the grocery bag, pouring the paraphernalia into the water below. The spoons and the candles splashed as they hit, but the paper, the citric acid, the rubber hoses, and the syringes floated. My stomach twisted, and I resisted the urge to look around me like the guilty man I was.

  I wadded up the grocery bag and tossed it as well. All I had left were my gloves. They would get trace all over my car. I had another pair in the glove box—real winter gloves, not work gloves. I would need gloves later this evening.

  I pulled the gloves off over the river, trying to keep anything from spilling on me. Then I let them drop.

  The Chicago River, one of the nation’s dirtiest, could contaminate the evidence for me. Even if someone found the bag, they wouldn’t know what it held or why it was there.

  I was shaking, and still breathing hard, but so far, I seemed to be alone.

  I got back into the car and let out a deep breath. I put the car into gear, drove north across the bridge, and turned east, stopping on Illinois to catch my breath.

  An old drunk staggered down the sidewalk, clutching a bottle in his right hand. He didn’t seem to see me.

  No one else was on the road.

  Still, I waited almost ten minutes before screwing the bulb back into my interior light and closing the car door properly. Then I turned on my headlights and drove to Hyde Park.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  EVEN THOUGH most of the residents of Hyde Park were mostly upper- and middle-class, the neighborhood was the only voluntarily integrated one in the city. The University of Chicago, located here, filled many of the stately houses—now discreet apartment buildings—with students, most of whom drove cars as decrepit as mine.

  As I entered this neighborhood in the middle of the night, I no longer felt like a target. I actually felt like I was coming home.

  Greg Nikolau lived just north of the university in an area filled with student housing. Even though it was late, most of the apartments still had lights burning. On one front porch, a young man sat, his feet on the brick railing, his chair tilted back, as he read a textbook under the porch light.

  I parked two buildings away from Nikolau’s, which was the closest parking spot I could find. I got out and walked up the sidewalk, and didn’t even feel conspicuous.

  The streetlights here were dim, but the porch lights more than compensated. Nikolau’s building—a Victorian house converted into apartments—had lights all around its circular porch. Bicycles were chained to the wrought-iron rails beside the brick steps leading up to the porch, and the front door was open, revealing more bicycles parked in the hallway.

  Nikolau’s apartment number, number four, was one flight up what had once been the house’s grand staircase. It was worn now, with a faded carpet covering the graying wood.

  I took the steps two at a time, the adrenaline that I had felt since I parked on the bridge still pouring through my system.

  Nikolau’s door was the first on my right. Several large boxes were stacked outside, their flaps overlaying each other as if someone had closed them hastily.

  I knocked loudly, not sure what I would find here. I assumed if Nikolau ran an abortion service, he did it away from his home, and any backup he had would be there, not here. Besides, in bed asleep was where he was most likely to be at one A.M. on a Thursday morning.

  Something shuffled behind the door, then it creaked open. A pistol pointed at me, its muzzle shaking.

  “Go the fuck away.” The words were indistinct, as if the speaker never learned to enunciate.

  The gun’s shaking bothered me, until I saw the hands clutching it. They were supporting each other and, even though a forefinger was on the trigger, the safety was still on.

  I grabbed the pistol and twisted it out of the shooter’s hand at the same moment I shoved the door open. The shooter screamed and staggered backward.

  He was a young man, no more than twenty-five, thin and short, maybe 130 pounds soaking wet, certainly not someone who could handle me in a fair fight.

  I stepped inside and let the door close behind me, hoping no one had heard that cry of panic.

  All the lights in the apartment were on. The young man backed away from me, then tripped over his own tennis-shoed feet, and toppled to the rug. He never took his gaze off me.

  His face was swollen, his eyes so black and blue that they were nearly closed. His lips were three times their normal size, and his nose appeared to be broken.

  “Greg Nikolau?” I asked.

  “Can’t you people leave me alone? Jesus. I’m doing everything you want.” He had trouble speaking around those swollen lips.

  “Really?” I asked, deciding to play along. “It doesn’t look like it.”

  “Fuck!” He scrambled backward in a crablike crawl, still not taking his gaze off me. “It takes a while to pack, man. I’ll be out of here by noon, I promise. He never said someone would come in the middle of the fucking night.”

  “Noon.” I almost smiled. I suddenly understood what happened, and it felt like the only victory in a day filled with defeats. “Johnson gave you until noon? How kind of him.”

  “Kind?” Nikolau braced one hand on the wall as he got to his feet. His legs shook. The hand he used as a brace had a bandage wrapped around the wrist. It didn’t look too steady. He swept the other hand down his body. “Does this look kind? He beat the shit out of me. I thought he was going to kill me.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t,” I said truthfully, “considering what you did to Val.”

  We had misjudged Johnson after all. He hadn’t killed Nikolau, but he’d made Nikolau understand the kind of pain he had put Valentina through.

  “It was an accident,” Nikolau said. “God, how many times do I have to say that? I liked Val. I even fucking asked her out a few times. I never meant to hurt her.”

  “You nearly killed her.” I kept my voice level.

  “Look,” he said, extending his hands. The other hand was swollen and had bruises that showed purple against his pale skin. Maybe he needed both hands to hold the gun because neither hand was working well. “She was nearly three mo
nths gone. That’s a lot of fucking tissue. And I don’t use anesthetic. She knew that.”

  “That seems pretty stupid,” I said.

  “See, that’s where you assholes don’t know anything.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He generated a lot of spittle as he tried to speak. “Anesthetic is dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. It takes special training.”

  “Like abortion,” I said.

  “Hell, women do that on their own. I was just helping out. Providing a service.”

  “Without anesthetic,” I said.

  “I didn’t want to hurt her. Don’t you get it? I’m not trained.”

  “But you’re trained in abortion.”

  He gave me a baleful look—at least, that seemed like what he intended. “No one is, but that doesn’t stop people. I’ve been interning at Cook County. You know how many self-induced I saw there?”

  “No,” I said, “and I don’t care. It sounds like what you did was worse.”

  “It was not. Most of the self-induced die.”

  I clenched my fists. “Tell me again how what you did was different?”

  “It wasn’t me on this one! It wasn’t. It was Val.” His whiny voice grated on my ears. “She knew I didn’t use anesthetic. If she couldn’t take the pain, she shouldn’t’ve come. I told her not to move. Be perfectly still, I said, and you’ll be all right.”

  “You’re saying that the damage that nearly killed Valentina Wilson was her fault?”

  “She had some training. She knew what she was getting into.”

  “And how many women have you done this too who didn’t have training? Who squirmed too?”

  “You’re twisting my words, man.”

  The anger I had been suppressing all day rose to the surface. I said, “Maybe I’ll just kill you myself.”

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Like I got anything to live for. Your friend took care of that. No medical license—not now, not ever. He got ahold of my advisors at the university and told them what I did. He called Cook County and told my boss. They’re pressing charges, but I’m doing what your friend Johnson told me to do. I’m leaving town.”

  My fist slammed into his already-injured mouth. The teeth mushed beneath my fingers, and he banged into the wall. He held one hand over his lips, looking as surprised as I felt.

  “What the hell was that for?”

  I had no idea how I understood him. The words he spoke didn’t sound like English. “So that you’ll think twice before ever attempting an abortion again.”

  “Like I can do any surgery ever again. It’s a finesse thing. Look at this hand. Look at it!” He held up his swollen, bruised right hand. “He stomped it. A bunch of the tiny bones are broken, but I can’t do anything. I’m scared to go to the hospital, because they’ll make me stay, and he said if he found me anywhere in Chicago after noon tomorrow—today, I guess—he’ll kill me.”

  I wanted to cheer Johnson. His revenge was better than anything Marvella and I could have done.

  “Then you’d better get the hell out of here,” I said.

  “But my stuff!” Nikolau said.

  “Isn’t worth your life,” I said.

  “Oh, Jesus.” He slid down the wall and huddled in a fetal position.

  “That’s all I wanted to tell you,” I said. “The sooner you get out of town, the happier the rest of us will be.”

  “This isn’t fair,” he said, huddled against the wall.

  “Considering that you’re guilty of attempted murder, it’s very fair,” I said, and walked to the door. I wanted to beat this kid senseless. Hell, I wanted to kill him with my bare hands.

  But it wouldn’t accomplish anything. This kid—and that’s all he was, some idiot punk kid with no sense of the people he was trying to help—had no community ties, no gang connection. If I killed him, no one else would be discouraged from doing abortions.

  Nothing would change, except that he would stop injuring innocent women. But Johnson had already taken care of that. Johnson, whom I hadn’t trusted enough to take into my confidence.

  Johnson, who was dead.

  “Hey!” Nikolau cried. “What about my gun?”

  I hefted it and looked at it. It was a nice piece, expensive, even if it had been poorly cared for.

  “My gun now,” I said, and let myself out of the apartment.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I GOT INTO my car and sat for a moment, letting the anger course through me. It wasn’t all I felt. I also felt respect for Johnson, respect I wasn’t sure I wanted to feel.

  He had proven me wrong. I had listened to Marvella’s worry about her cousin, thought about the times I had seen him angry, and forgotten that I hadn’t really known him.

  Maybe if I had given him a chance, he would be alive now. I would have had the benefit of Johnson’s complicated brain, and he wouldn’t be a potential statistic in a war that no one would win.

  I sighed, and checked Nikolau’s gun. It wasn’t even loaded. I tucked it under the seat. Then I took one last look at the neighborhood.

  The textbook reader got up, picked up his chair, and went inside his building. Another man, young by the look of him, unlocked one of the bikes on a nearby porch and rode it down the stairs. He bounced off the curb and into the street without even looking for traffic. He disappeared into the darkness.

  I wondered if Nikolau had operated here or somewhere else. He didn’t look sophisticated enough to have a separate office. How deceptive this was. Safe and intellectual, easily middle class, concerned with class times and homework assignments instead of women, lying on a bed in an upstairs apartment, clenching their fists against a pain so intense that they involuntarily tried to get away from it.

  Valentina had trusted that asshole, and I didn’t understand why.

  As I sat there, trying to calm down, Nikolau lurched out the front door. He carried a suitcase in his least injured hand. He tried to open the trunk of his car, gave up, and kicked the back. Then he leaned on it, defeated.

  After a moment, he set the suitcase down and opened the trunk with his good hand. Then he picked the suitcase up and set it inside. He got into the driver’s side, looked up at the building, and shook his head.

  He seemed to struggle for a minute with the ignition before the car started. He reached across the column with his left hand and shifted, then the car jerked forward, narrowly missing the others parked around it.

  I smiled.

  “Nice work, Johnson,” I said as if he were sitting beside me. “Nice work.”

  I started up my own car, made a U-turn, and headed out of the neighborhood. Nikolau was the proof I needed; I had been right. Johnson hadn’t gone back to work. Whatever he had been doing on the Gaza Strip during the afternoon had been related to Val.

  Johnson had gotten the withdrawal slip from Val’s apartment, and then confronted Paulette. She hadn’t known exactly who raped Val, although she probably could recognize the man. Had she told Johnson that? I wasn’t sure.

  My next stop, then, would be Val’s apartment.

  I felt like I was retracing Johnson’s last steps, walking behind him, missing the clues. I wondered if we had worked together whether he would have made this much progress or if my methods would have held him back.

  I shook the thoughts away and, with them, a feeling of loss so intense that my fingers dug into the steering wheel’s hard plastic. I couldn’t think about Johnson. Instead, I had to concentrate on finding his killer.

  And the next place I had to find was Valentina’s apartment.

  I had been having luck with the phone book, so I decided to continue with that particular investigative tool. I parked in front of my own apartment, locked the car, and went inside.

  The building was silent. A single light burned in the hallway. Marvella’s lights were off, and some circulars leaned against her door. I picked them up and carried them inside my own apartment, which was considerably cooler than it had been earlier in the day.

 
; I had left the windows open, and the heavy rain had soaked the windowsills. I closed the windows slightly, still letting the breeze come in. I felt restless here, as if I didn’t belong. It was a strange feeling, but one I recognized from my stint in Korea.

  Things always felt different after the shooting started.

  I ate an apple as I thumbed through the phone book. Sure enough, Valentina Wilson was listed—as Val Wilson, which was smarter than initials on her part. Val could be either a male or female name; initials tended to shout that the inhabitant was female.

  She lived a few blocks away from Johnson, apparently unable to leave that neighborhood. Thoughtfully, Ma Bell had even provided an apartment number in the form of a 1/2. Valentina Wilson lived in a two-flat on the second floor.

  I finished the apple, tossed the core, and went into my bedroom. From my closet, I took a black jacket and my shoulder holster. I also took the last of my cash from the top drawer.

  I had no idea if I would need any of that, but I didn’t want to come home again until I was certain.

  Then I left, heading back to one of Bronzeville’s nicer neighborhoods to break into an apartment.

  * * *

  It was after two A.M. I couldn’t go to the hospital in the middle of the night and get Marvella’s help. I didn’t want to disturb the Shipleys again, not with the way Paulette had looked when I left. Valentina had been a cop’s wife, and Marvella had made a point of telling me that Johnson did not hide an extra key outside his door. I doubted Valentina did, either.

  If I wanted to get inside that apartment, I had to do it myself.

  I got my extra set of gloves out of the glove box, and put them on. They were thicker than the pair I had discarded, and would make my movements difficult. But they were all I had left.

  Valentina’s neighborhood looked as different from Nikolau’s as possible. It also differed from Johnson’s. On this block, only the stumps of the old trees remained, and no one had planted any younger trees. The two-flats had been built in the 1920s and, from the look of them, hadn’t been altered at all.