Stone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  “I didn’t meet any Armand Vitel,” I said.

  “You talked to him for a long time,” Sinkovich said. “He’s Chaz Yancy’s favorite gopher on the Red Squad. That’s how he got his nickname.”

  I felt cold. Very cold. “Jump?”

  “What’s going on?” The annoyance in Sinkovich’s voice had vanished.

  “Is it Jump?” I repeated, articulating each word slowly.

  “Yeah, of course.” Sinkovich had moved closer to the phone. He sounded louder. “They call him that because Yancy says, ‘Jump,’ and Vitel asks—”

  “How high.” We spoke the last two words of the old joke in unison.

  “Can Jump Vitel operate without Yancy’s permission?” I asked, leaning against the wall so no one could hear me.

  “Sure,” Sinkovich said. “They aren’t joined at the hip, at least not anymore. They used to be. We’ve called him Jump long before there even was a Red Squad.”

  “What do you think of him?” My voice was even lower.

  “Jump? Or Yancy?”

  “Jump,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t let him shake my hand without counting my fingers afterwards, if you know what I mean,” Sinkovich said.

  “Is it just theft or is there other stuff?” I asked.

  “What’s this all about?” Sinkovich sounded wide awake and suspicious now.

  “You don’t want to know, Jack. Just answer me.”

  “Does this have something to do with Johnson?”

  “Answer me, Jack.”

  He was silent. I could hear his breathing, harsh and ragged, as if he had been running. “There’s rumors,” he said after a moment.

  “What kind of rumors?”

  “There’s rumors about the whole Red Squad,” Sinkovich said. “They like their job too much, they’re trigger happy, they like the power. There’s those kind of rumors about every special unit, you know that.”

  “I do,” I said. “I’m asking about Jump.”

  Sinkovich sighed. “You didn’t hear nothing from me.”

  “Why do you think I called you at home?”

  Again he was silent. I could imagine him thinking it through.

  Pots clanged in the cafeteria, and the smell of institutional eggs filtered toward me, mixed with coffee and baking bread. My stomach growled. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten.

  “A bunch of excessive-force complaints,” Sinkovich said so softly I almost didn’t hear him. “That’s one of the reasons he was put on the Red Squad, because nobody cares what he does to ghetto kids.”

  “All in the past, before the Red Squad?” I asked.

  “No, there’ve been more,” Sinkovich said. “But no one pursued them, you know? He was one of a handful of cops not assigned to the Democratic National Convention.”

  The fact that Sinkovich brought up the convention was serious. He was very sensitive about his own behavior during it.

  “Because…?”

  “I don’t think, for all the mayor’s tough talk, that he wanted any dead white kids.” Sinkovich’s voice sounded empty. “Especially rich white kids.”

  My stomach felt hollow. The concrete wall was cold through my black shirt sleeve.

  “What else?” I asked.

  “You hear about that black kid, the one who got arrested two weeks ago and died in jail? The Stone?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “He was Jump’s. Word around the House is that Jump brought him in like that, denied him medical treatment, and sat there, watching.”

  I leaned my forehead against the wall. “Why hasn’t anyone done something about him?”

  “They did.” Sinkovich’s voice was bitter. “They assigned him to the Red Squad. Now you gonna tell me what’s going on?”

  It was my turn to be silent. Two interns, looking exhausted, walked into the cafeteria. A nurse, her uniform splotchy with dried blood, followed them.

  “How about I ask you a question instead?” I was huddled as close to the phone as I could be. Now I wished I had made the call from my apartment.

  “Shoot.”

  “Could a guy like that have the right kind of gang connections to set up a hit?”

  “Oh, God.” There was panic in Sinkovich’s voice. “You’re not suggesting—?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything,” I said. “It’s a hypothetical. I mean, the gangs would all hate him, right?”

  “Except for a handful of informers, yeah. But those kids were too young to be informers. Why the hell would he kill Johnson?”

  “I never said that.” I kept my voice down.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You can’t go up against a guy like this,” Sinkovich said. “You can’t even bring your pet photographer up against him. It won’t stick.”

  Sinkovich was referring to Saul Epstein, who had helped us with the case last December. Saul was a nationally known photojournalist, whose pictures from our case, published outside of Chicago, caused a scandal nationwide.

  “Saul is in New York City, getting an award for December’s story,” I said.

  “Well, there you go. And no other journalist’ll touch it. They don’t dare. Hell, everyone’s afraid of the Red Squad.”

  “I’m not asking them to touch it,” I said, as levelly as I could. Another intern walked past, and the emergency-room doctor from Sunday night. He looked like someone who had been up all night as well. “I’m asking you if such a thing were possible.”

  “The hit?”

  “Something like that, yeah,” I said.

  “Of course, Jump can set one up,” Sinkovich said. “He’d know who to go to. Those kids aren’t loyal yet, and if one of the informers did the ordering, they’d never know who was behind the setup. Even if it wasn’t them, even if it was Jump himself, the kids might do it. They’re not human anymore. They’ll do damn near anything for a fuckin’ candy bar.”

  “Thank you, Jack,” I said, and started to hang up.

  “No! No!” His voice got even louder. “You can’t hang up yet!”

  I stopped. “I only have a minute, Jack.”

  “Look,” he said, panicked. “Look, you mess with those guys, you can’t live in this city. You got that? They’ll go after you, your kid, your family. They’ll shred you and everyone who ever said hello to you. Even if they don’t kill you, they’ll fuckin’ destroy you. And you’re a guy with secrets, Grimshaw, don’t tell me you ain’t. God knows what they’ll do to you.”

  “Thanks, Jack,” I said.

  “No! Wait! I’m serious, Grimshaw. They’ll burn you. That rich girlfriend of yours can’t stop them. They’ll use their own pet journalists to take her down, and she’s got a lot to lose.” He paused, as if he were trying to get ahold of himself. “And so do you, Grimshaw. That kid of yours is a piker, but he’s something worth fightin’ for. You can’t take a bullet on this one. This one you gotta walk away from.”

  “I get it, Jack,” I said.

  “But you’re not going to listen, are you?” he asked, his voice getting smaller as I moved the receiver away from my ear.

  I set receiver in the cradle and stayed beside the phone. It was worse than I had ever imagined. No wonder Valentina had been trying to protect Johnson.

  Truman Johnson walked into a wall so big he couldn’t have busted through it no matter how hard he tried. The problem was the timing. He probably felt flush after his victory with Nikolau. Valentina needed protection, and Johnson, not realizing how truly sick Jump Vitel was, set up the meeting beforehand. Johnson probably went to that bar to warn Vitel away from Val.

  Johnson probably told him that he would be protecting her from now on.

  He had no idea how much Vitel hated him. The trashing of the house came after Johnson’s death, not before. Johnson had no way of knowing that, by setting up the meeting, he had just given Vitel the opportunity he had been waiting for.

  My stomach was churning, and my head ached. I hadn’t had any sleep and I didn’t know when I would get any.
What I needed was a few moments to myself.

  I needed a chance to think.

  I left the phone and walked into the cafeteria alongside a white woman with a beehive hairdo, wearing a green dress that ended just above her knees. One of her false eyelashes had come unstuck, and her pancake makeup had pooled in her laugh lines, like makeup often did at the end of the day.

  Night shift had to be ending.

  I stood in the short line, tray in hand, but I wasn’t thinking about food. I was thinking about arriving at that crime scene, Johnson on what was left of his belly, and Jump Vitel lying through his teeth about trying to save Johnson’s life.

  It must have seemed so simple to Vitel. He did go up the stairs first, like the bartender thought, signaled the kids, all the while talking to Johnson. Then, the moment the bike pulled close, and Johnson’s attention was on it and his tiny assassin, Vitel launched himself down the stairs, probably low enough to prevent himself from getting hit by bbs, blood, or guts.

  “Mister?” the middle-aged white woman behind the counter asked me in a tone that suggested she had said something before. “Did you want something?”

  Jump Vitel’s head, I thought, but I didn’t say that. I looked at the steam tables instead.

  The scrambled eggs were runny, and the toast had been burned. The oatmeal seemed almost like an extension of the crime scene.

  My stomach twisted again.

  “The French toast,” I said, pointing. It, at least, looked edible. “Lots of butter. Please.”

  She served four small pieces on a plate, put a pad of butter beside them, and set the whole thing on my tray. I grabbed some orange juice and milk, as well as a cup of coffee.

  After I paid for everything, I had to go back for my silverware and napkins. I spread the butter on my toast while standing at the condiments table. The syrup bottles were sticky and nearly empty, but I used one anyway.

  By the time I got to a table, I no longer wanted to eat. But I forced myself to, ignoring my queasy stomach.

  I wished I could also ignore the images in my mind.

  After Johnson had been shot, Vitel had hurried down the stairs, remembered his coat and his gun, and ran out the back door. Yancy might already have been running down the alley or he had been waiting for Vitel.

  Yancy could have known about the hit, or he might not have. He might have simply thought that Vitel was inside, having a private meeting, something the two of them felt had to be kept secret, or not. He could have been innocent of this crime. Or not.

  I had no way of knowing.

  All I knew was this: They had come out of that alley, and one of them—maybe even Yancy—had seen the bike turn the corner. Whether the two men saw the shooter get into a car was something I probably wouldn’t know.

  Not that it mattered. The Gang Intelligence Unit knew how these hits worked, what the routine was, and what the getaways were. They didn’t have to make anything up, because their version was probably accurate.

  I didn’t even taste my food. It went down like paste and sat like a lump in my stomach. The orange juice gave me some energy, though. I used the milk to cool down my coffee, and made myself sip.

  Sinkovich was right. I couldn’t take on the entire Gang Intelligence Unit myself. Even if I managed to report this, no one would believe me. I hadn’t seen it, and the evidence I had would make a judge laugh me out of court.

  It wasn’t even enough to go to Saul Epstein with, even if he had been in town. We would have to do weeks of investigation, word would leak out, and we would both be in danger—as well as Epstein’s wonderful grandmother, Ruth Weisman, and all of the Grimshaws.

  Not to mention Jimmy. I couldn’t jeopardize myself like that, not with Jimmy around. I believed Sinkovich. If I went after Vitel, he would come after me. And mine, and the life I had built here.

  But I couldn’t let this go, any more than Johnson had. Anyone who had seen those notes knew that Vitel wouldn’t stop until he either possessed Valentina or killed her.

  And I wanted to hurt him for what he had done to Johnson.

  I wanted to kill him for what he had done to Johnson.

  I set my coffee down and put my head in my hands. I didn’t know how to fight Vitel. Everyone was afraid of him. No one would help me.

  I was truly on my own.

  Valentina had explored two different routes while she tried to protect Johnson. The detectives she had hired had been afraid to take on Vitel, just like Sinkovich was. And the lawyer didn’t have the ability—not that I believed for a single moment that threatening Vitel with a lawsuit, even if the lawyer had grounds, would have frightened him.

  Valentina could move out of the city. Vitel didn’t seem to have a grudge against Marvella or the rest of Johnson’s family. Vitel would simply turn his attention to some other woman, and do to her what he had done to Valentina.

  And if that happened, he would get away with his crimes—all of them: the fear tactics, Valentina’s rape, and finally, Johnson’s murder.

  I couldn’t let Johnson’s murder go unavenged.

  I supposed I could just walk up to Vitel and shoot the son of a bitch. He didn’t know me. He would probably remember seeing me with Sinkovich, but that would allow me to get close, not hinder my strategy.

  But what would happen after I shot him? Either I’d have to be cunning enough to get him alone—and not even Johnson managed that (although he probably thought he had)—or I would have to kill Vitel in front of God and everyone.

  Either way, I would become another one of Vitel’s victims, a man who lost everything for a single moment of revenge.

  There had to be another way. I had to find someone as angry at Vitel as I was, someone who could take action against him. Someone who had more clout than I did.

  That wouldn’t be anyone in government. Nor would it be the police, who already knew this psychopath was on the loose, and didn’t want to do anything constructive to restrain him.

  The only people Vitel hurt were people who couldn’t fight back—or if they could, could only use illegal methods, which simply escalated the war the Gang Intelligence Unit seemed to believe they were involved in.

  Then I leaned back in my chair. Sinkovich had used the word “loyalty,” and he had been right. Loyalty was everything to the gangs. That was why, when they caught informers, they killed them so viciously and left their bodies to be found. Why they stood up for each other, even when turning other gang members in would make a situation better.

  Gangs believed they were family because the gang replaced a nonexistent family—and loyalty was the only real currency that the gang had.

  Vitel had violated that loyalty. He had taken something that belonged to the gang—the hit squad—and had used it for his own purpose.

  And in gang parlance, that was worse than the murder itself.

  THIRTY-TWO

  THE OFFICIAL HEADQUARTERS of the Blackstone Rangers was on Sixty-seventh and Blackstone. There were others, including the First Presbyterian Church of Woodlawn, and the Southmoor Hotel. But the large warehouselike building on Sixty-seventh and Blackstone was where petitioners went when they needed to bargain with the Stones.

  I had been there once before.

  I drove there now as the city woke up. The traffic around me went north instead of south. Mine seemed to be the only car on my side of the road.

  When I left the hospital, I had stopped at my apartment briefly enough to get ready for this meeting. I had taken both guns, my shoulder holster, and my jacket inside. Then I had cleaned up so that I looked somewhat presentable—it had been a long night—and changed into less obvious clothing. Black worked for the middle of the night. On a tall, wide black man in the middle of the day, black clothing forced people to make the wrong kind of assumptions.

  It made me noticed instead of invisible.

  So from my closet, I removed a pair of pants, hand-me-downs from Franklin that he had given me the summer before. They were loose, and a bit short, revealing a go
od inch of my socks, which was precisely how I remembered them to be. I tucked a white shirt into them.

  Then I got the guns ready.

  I was going alone into the Black P. Stone Nation, as it called itself, a gang four thousand members strong. I had gone in once before with Malcolm Reyner as backup, and we had come out alive.

  This time, I would have no backup at all.

  I took Nikolau’s gun and put it in my shoulder holster, then slipped the holster on. I hadn’t had time to buy ammunition for that gun, and I doubted I would need it. If I did indeed find some members of the Stones’ leadership group, the Main 21, someone would frisk me. They would find Nikolau’s gun and confiscate it until the meeting was over.

  Then I strapped my own gun, loaded with a full clip, on the inside of my left calf. It would take two quick moves to reach it—and two quick moves might be two too many—but it would be the only backup I had.

  I hoped they would take me at face value—a forty-year-old man wearing bad clothing—and decide that I was too dumb to carry any other weapon other than the one in my shoulder holster.

  I made sure the pants covered the gun no matter how I moved my leg. When I was satisfied, I put the suit coat on and left the apartment.

  My mouth had a metallic dryness as I drove. My own gun weighed heavy against my leg, feeling like a scab that needed picking.

  Overhead, the clouds remained, as dark and ominous as they had been the day before. A light breeze blew, swirling last fall’s leaves and the dirt that got stirred up from yesterday’s storms.

  As I got closer to Sixty-seventh and Blackstone, the morning crowds thinned, and I found myself once again in one of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago.

  No one made a pretense at cleanup here. Empty lots glistened where buildings had burned or been torn down. Graffiti decorated the remaining walls—most of it blue against the red walls, all of it with a variation of Blackstone Rangers or Black P. Stone or simply Stones.

  The last time I had been here, it had been a December twilight, and I had thought I had entered hell. But hell looked worse in the daytime. All the details were visible—the dirty streets, the broken windows, the ruined businesses.