Stone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  A few destroyed cars—most of them burned out or robbed for parts—hugged the curbs. Others, newer, were parked nearby. I kept an eye out for the Gang Intelligence Unit’s white van—or anything large enough to be used by the Unit. The last time I had been here, the van had been spying on the building.

  I didn’t want the van anywhere close this time.

  Of course, at this time of day, the van was usually near schools. I hoped it followed its usual plan.

  The pawn shop that served as a front for the headquarters was closed. I was too early to get in that way. Still, I parked in front of it, and sat for a moment, my hands on the steering wheel.

  This was my chance to change my mind. If I backed out now, Vitel would continue doing what he had been doing, but the city wouldn’t have another police casualty in its so-called gang war.

  Of course that war was being manipulated by the Unit, grabbing members of rival gangs and dropping them in each other’s turf so that the murder and attempted murder rate went up. And of course, placing others in the line of fire—innocent people, like Truman Johnson, who would be counted as a police casualty in that self-same war.

  No matter how long I sat there, as the chill morning air seeped into my car, I wasn’t going to change my mind. I had only one way of stopping this bastard, and I was going to take it.

  I got out of the car. I didn’t see anyone on the street—no red tams, no faces peeking out of the broken windows, no one stepping out of the tavern next door. But I knew I was being watched. A place like this always had its guards, and they were always on alert.

  I didn’t even try to the door to the pawnshop. The tavern’s main door was closed as well.

  Instead, I went around the side of the building to the door that led to a stage in the meeting room, a door through which Malcolm and I had escaped the building four months earlier.

  The door was metal, and it was closed, too. The winter hadn’t been kind to it. Bullet holes had shattered its diamond-shaped window, and others had penetrated the center of the metal.

  Rust from the harsh winter streaked the door’s white paint, and the lock beneath the doorknob itself looked like someone had tried to tamper with it.

  I knocked, hating the way my back was exposed to the alley. Again, I saw no movement out of the corner of my eye, but the hair behind my neck rose. Someone was watching, and that someone was close.

  Shuffling behind the door caught my attention. Movement near the base of the diamond window suggested that someone tried to peer out of it.

  Then there was silence.

  I knocked again.

  More silence.

  I had no idea what I would do if I couldn’t locate the Stones. Did I go to the Southmoor Hotel or the First Presbyterian Church? Or did I wait here until the pawn shop opened and try again? How long before my activities in this part of town drew attention?

  How long before the Gang Intelligence Unit knew I was here?

  Then the lock clicked, and the door banged open. The Stone who had talked to me first in the pawn shop, a man in his twenties whom I knew only as Charles—and whom I would never call that to his face—peered out.

  “This better be important, Gramps,” he said. “Because you be waking up some brothers.”

  “You said I should come back if I had information.” I pitched my voice low, almost submissive.

  “I didn’t say.” But he held the door open anyway, and I stepped inside.

  It was dark, and I had to blink for a moment before my eyes adjusted. We entered behind a stage that had once been part of a tavern. The wings still existed, and were probably used for dramatic entrances during some of the larger Stones meetings.

  Charles pulled back a dusty old velvet curtain, showing me the three flat wooden steps that led to the floor below. Then he clicked on overhead lights.

  “Wait here,” he said, and disappeared into the blackness behind the stage.

  The room he had left me in was huge. Metal folding chairs lined one wall. On another, someone—or several someones—had painted a dramatic mural. Words mixed into a flowered backdrop, and in the foreground, dozens of faces, including famous ones—Aretha Franklin, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the Stones’ official leader, Jeff Fort.

  I had been in this room before. It had three exits—the one I had just used, another to the right, and one hidden in the mural itself. The place still carried the musty beer smell of the tavern it had once been, and I thought I caught the sickly sweetish odor of marijuana floating in the air.

  The wait seemed to take forever. I wondered if Charles had to wake the leaders up to bring them down here. I paced the room, studying the mural, trying to see if more than one artist had worked on it. I still wasn’t able to tell.

  Finally, two Stones I hadn’t seen before, both built like linebackers and wearing ratty black leather jackets, came in from the main door. Their red tams were pulled over large afros, and one of them wore sunglasses, which he removed when he saw me.

  “Arms out, Pops,” he said.

  I stuck my arms out as if I were about to do jumping jacks. I extended my legs also.

  “I have a shoulder holster,” I said before they started searching. “I always carry my gun.”

  They could understand that. The Stone who spoke pulled the left side of my jacket open and saw the holster. The other Stone reached in and removed Nikolau’s gun.

  Then the first Stone patted me down, his big hands hard against my skin. He stopped just shy of the second gun, and I tried not to sigh with relief. He would have wondered why I hadn’t told him about it.

  “Will I get my gun back?” I asked, letting the nerves that had just rattled me into my voice.

  “Depends,” he said, and carried the gun out of the room. The other Stone stayed by the door, arms crossed, watching me as if I were a part of an extremely interesting experiment.

  We stood like that for another long time, although how long I wasn’t certain. I didn’t wear a watch, and I didn’t want to be looking at it if I had.

  After a while, the Stone who had taken my gun returned. He whispered to the remaining Stone, and then stood beside him, hands clasped behind his back.

  Five Stones walked across the stage. I recognized two of them, although I didn’t know their names. One had a long goatee, and the other coke-bottle thick wire-rim glasses. The remaining three were strangers to me, but considering the way the others treated them, mthey were important.

  “Gramps,” Glasses said. “You said we wasn’t gonna see you again.”

  “You said my family’s protection was contingent on good information.”

  Glasses smiled, revealing astonishingly white teeth. “I did, didn’t I?”

  “Awfully early in the morning for information,” said one of the Stones I didn’t recognize. He had a deep voice, and he kept his hands tucked in the pockets of his leather jacket.

  “I didn’t want the Red Squad to see me,” I said.

  “Why? They spying on us again?” Goatee asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but it would be better if I stayed out of their way right now.”

  “You in trouble with them?” Deep Voice asked.

  Charles came in the side door and leaned against it, blocking it. He watched me closely, as if he expected me to make a quick move.

  “We don’t get along,” I said.

  “Your information checked out last time,” Glasses said, and I felt relieved. I had told the Stones that the Gang Intelligence Unit was planning a raid on one of their headquarters—a lie on my part, but a logical one. I figured the Unit would eventually do that. Apparently, I had been right. “How can you get information from them if you don’t get along?”

  “I have friends in low places,” I said, using one of Malcolm Reyner’s favorite phrases.

  “What have you got this time?” Goatee asked.

  “Something that disturbs the hell out of me,” I said, not lying. “Does our deal still stand?”

 
“Protection in exchange for information? You got it, Gramps,” Glasses said. “Ain’t we been livin’ up to our end of the deal?”

  He was asking me, wanting me to tell him if someone had crossed the line.

  “Yes,” I said. “You have, and I’m grateful.”

  I was, too. The gang harassment in December had been ugly, and I hadn’t been certain then that I had enough tricks to keep Jimmy away from them.

  “So what you got, Gramps?” Goatee asked.

  “The hit on the cop yesterday,” I said. “The one in the Gaza Strip. You know it?”

  The two Stones who hadn’t spoken nodded. Glasses said, “We don’t care about Disciples’ business.”

  “It wasn’t a Disciples’ hit,” I said. “I was led to believe it was Stones.”

  Goatee rolled his eyes, and shook his head. Deep Voice crossed his arms. “We’d know if we took on a cop. We didn’t even know that one.”

  “But it was your method,” I said. “Two kids on a bike, a getaway car, and a van, right?”

  Two of the Stones on the stage looked surprised. For the first time in our two dealings together, Glasses looked nervous.

  Goatee didn’t seem to notice. “So they copied our method, so what?”

  Deep Voice wiped his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. He looked nervous, too.

  “The Disciples weren’t the ones who copied your method,” I said. “It was hijacked.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Goatee asked.

  Glasses stood up straighter. He exchanged a glance with Deep Voice. Charles pressed closer to the wall, on the floor level near me.

  “It means someone convinced two of your shooters to pull this off,” I said.

  “Which two?” Goatee asked. He was speaking to me, but he was looking at the Stones around him.

  “Heard a rumor that it was Squeak and his brother,” Deep Voice said. He was studying me.

  “Have you checked out the rumor?” I asked.

  “Ignored it,” one of the other men said. “Thought it was a Disciples’ lie.”

  Glasses glared at Deep Voice. He shrugged.

  “I was planning to look into it today,” Deep Voice said. “It’s my turf.”

  “Those boys didn’t do it on their own,” I said. “It was a hit, and you’ll probably find out they were paid. They might even have gotten the information from one of your men.”

  “Might?” Glasses sounded angry.

  “I’m not sure about that part,” I said. “But if it was one of your guys who ordered the hit, he’s a police informant.”

  “What?” all five Stones said that in unison.

  “That’s a hell of a charge,” Glasses said. “How do you know this?”

  “Because, as you said, you all had no reason to hit this cop. I know who had the reason. He met with the cop in Greenwood’s, and he led the cop outside for the hit.”

  “You think a cop killed a cop?” Deep Voice asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I know that a cop did this.”

  “Who?” Glasses asked.

  “Jump Vitel.” My words echoed in the large room.

  “That’s not possible,” Deep Voice said. “No Stone would listen to a member of the Red Squad.”

  “No Stone would, but an informant would.”

  “You said you weren’t sure about the informant,” Glasses said.

  “And I’m not,” I said. “But those kids are what—ten? How easily did you guys buy them? Maybe Vitel bought them for twice as much.”

  “Son of bitch,” Deep Voice said.

  Goatee held up his hand. “That’s a hell of a charge, Gramps. What’s your proof?”

  “Vitel’s girlfriend.” I mentally apologized to Valentina for that small lie—although, probably, from Vitel’s perspective, I was telling the truth.

  “So let’s talk to her,” said one of the other Stones.

  “Are you kidding?” Glasses snapped without looking at him. “Bringing a cop’s girlfriend down here?”

  “We can’t act on this crap without confirmation,” the Stone said.

  “No, we can’t,” Deep Voice said. “We also can’t let some cop mess with our business.”

  “Vitel’s been in our face too much as it is,” Goatee said.

  “Not to mention what he done to Charles’s brother, here,” Glasses said.

  They all looked at Charles, who was studying the floor.

  “Your brother was the one who died last month?” I asked, guessing.

  Charles nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “We let that go,” Deep Voice said, “because we thought the cops would take care of their own.”

  “We woulda,” one of the other Stones said.

  “But they’re dogs. They didn’t do nothing. Jump’s back on the street like he done something good.” Deep Voice was gaining a preacher’s cadence.

  “Maybe to them he did,” Glasses said.

  “Panthers been saying the cops want to level the ghetto. I hear lots of talk of war,” Goatee said.

  “Panthers are crazy, man,” Glasses said. “Panthers just want to take over the Main 21. Make us ‘po-litical.’”

  “That don’t mean they’re wrong,” Goatee said. “They been right about this crap before.”

  “The city’s talking about declaring an official war against the gangs,” I said, adding the information Sinkovich told me. “They’ve already increased their firepower, and they may do it again. They’ve also added more than a hundred men to the Red Squad.”

  “Shee-it,” Glasses said. “I thought I seen more of them fuckers around.”

  “They got a hundred plus, they won’t miss one,” Deep Voice said.

  “Hey,” Goatee said, holding up a hand. “We don’t go offing cops. Not for no reason, not without proof, and not on the word of some old fart who thinks he’s got so-called information.”

  I didn’t like the old-fart characterization, even though my clothing supported that description. Still, I had to get this group moving.

  “So check the story out,” I said. “Then take action.”

  “Sounds like great advice, Gramps,” Deep Voice said. “I think we’ll take you up on that.”

  He jumped off the stage and walked toward me. I held my position, my heart pounding. His eyes were dark, but they were clear.

  “And you be coming with us,” he said, grabbing my arm. He snapped his fingers and half a dozen guns were pointed at me.

  I forced myself to breathe evenly, but I couldn’t suppress an involuntary swallow.

  “If your information don’t check out, they gonna find one dumpy fuckin corpse on the Gaza Strip.” Deep Voice grinned. “Shoulda dressed up, old man. This might be the last fuckin’ thing you ever wear.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  THE STONES were going to just keep a single gun trained on me as they led me out of the building, but Charles reminded them that I had once beaten up several of their members, one badly enough that he still didn’t walk well. So they tied my hands behind my back, and shoved me into the alley where yet another Stone had pulled a large gray sedan up to the door.

  The rain that had threatened all morning had started, small drips that didn’t seem to know they were part of the same storm. Two Stones held me as we walked forward—the two who had guarded me while we waited for the members of the Main 21 to arrive.

  Charles flanked me, and Glasses, Goatee, and Deep Voice followed. The other two were supposed to stay behind, in case I had set up some kind of scam that got them to empty their headquarters.

  The Stones shoved me in the backseat of the sedanand forced me to straddle the center, my long legs on either side of the mound in the middle of the car. I hoped my pants didn’t rise up too far on the left, revealing the gun. The short pants leg had stopped the initial search, like I had hoped, by revealing that bit of sock so that no one thought I was carrying a second weapon, but if that weapon got revealed now, I would be in ev
en bigger trouble.

  The car bounced and shook as the other Stones crawled inside. It was a tight squeeze in the back—the two that were guarding me, and Deep Voice and Charles, both sitting by the windows, both with shotguns across their laps.

  A gun was still pressed against my side as well.

  I didn’t want to be along. I had hoped to set everything in motion and then go home, letting Vitel’s past sins catch up with him.

  Instead, I was riding along to interview two ten-year-olds, the actual murderers of Truman Johnson. And if they confessed to working for Vitel, I wasn’t certain what the Stones would do to them.

  I had a hunch the boys would become victims of the same kind of street justice that I wanted the Stones to inflict on Vitel. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. They were children, but they were also hired assassins who had learned to kill in cold blood.

  We drove farther north than I expected, up to the Robert Taylor Homes, a two-mile-long housing project that loomed over the South Side of the city. The complex was sandwiched between the Rock Island Embankment and State Street, sixteen-story concrete buildings with narrow windows marking each floor.

  People warehouses, with no yards, no playgrounds, nothing but concrete and roads beside them, as dismal a place as I had ever seen.

  We pulled into the parking lot just off Fifty-fourth and Pershing. Burned-out cars, broken glass, and garbage covered the asphalt. A little girl sat on the steps leading into the building, her dress dirty, her hair tangled. She held a headless doll as filthy as she was, but she wasn’t playing with it. She was just staring straight ahead, as if the nothing before her mesmerized her.

  She was about the same age as Norene.

  The car cruised the parking lot, until it finally stopped by the main doors to this building, marked with a number over the top.

  “Squeak lives here?” Glasses asked, surprising me. The car had been quiet up until that point.

  “Yeah,” Deep Voice said, looking out the window, his hand clutched on his shotgun.

  “Shit,” Glasses said. “I don’t want to go into Stateville. You go, Brass. And you go with him, Chico.”

  Goatee slid his shot gun to Glasses and got out. “You comin’, Brass?”