by John Shirley
After that, Pearce had done what he could to befriend the kid. He’d come around, from time to time, talking to Mick for the sake of his father, trying to get him to agree to stay out of the gangs. He couldn’t be seen with the boy in public a lot but he’d taken him with him on a rented cabin cruiser, out on Lake Michigan, more than once—until Mick had moved to another ward, when his Ma remarried. Pearce had lost touch...
Maybe the kid knew that Aiden Pearce had inadvertently caused his father’s death. Not really Pearce’s fault, when you thought about it—but still: Maybe Mick Wolfe wanted to punish Pearce for it.
After what happened today, I shouldn’t trust Mick Wolfe...
But Pearce’s instincts told him that Mick Wolfe wasn’t his enemy. And the kid had managed to find him, when no one else had. Which meant that Wolfe was pretty damned effective.
If there was confirmation that Wolfe hadn’t set him up, then maybe Wolfe could do some work for Aiden Pearce.
Pearce was going to have to keep his grazed head down, keep it all on the extra down low awhile, until he found out who’d tried to assassinate him.
It occurred to him that it might not have been a case of someone just spotting Aiden Pearce and dropping a dime. It might’ve been one of his own people—someone he worked with, around town. There was a handful of people he trusted...
Had one of them found out where he was going that day?
If so—they’d gotten paid for turning over that information.
And it was up to Pearce to find out who was getting paid—and who was paying that bill...
Because now he had a payment to make of his own.
Or to be precise, payback—for someone creasing his skull with a bullet. And in Chicago, payback is a bitch.
#
“Tranter. Come in.”
“Mr. Verrick. Okay to talk about just anything in here?”
“Yeah. I just had the office swept.” He’d had the office checked for bugs that morning. Of course, there were guys like Aiden Pearce supposedly able to listen in on your office phone without putting a listening device directly in it...through some form of wireless hacking. But even Pearce would have to be close to get that done. And they were on the thirty-ninth floor.
It was a big, corner office in the new Blume building, with a view on the lake—anyhow, you could see a piece of Lake Michigan if you leaned over and peered past the John Hancock Center.
Major Roger Verrick, US Army retired, had a nice layout, here, and he reveled in it. He had a big mahogany desk, wall-windows that cornered together nicely, a Picasso lithograph over the leather sofa, a wet bar, and a top grade espresso machine.
Looking at Tranter standing just inside the closed office door, Verrick shifted in the expensive ergonomic chair—he’d hurt his back in an IED attack that’d flipped over the humvee, in Somalia, and it had never perfectly healed, despite the operations.
“You look a bit rattled, Tranter.”
“Yeah. The, uh, arrow missed its target, Mr. Verrick.”
“Did it? Which idiot did you hire? Never mind, don’t tell me. We had good intel—only a moron could blow it. Pearce is rarely out on the streets in plain sight these days. How’d our man manage to miss?”
“Someone on the street warned him.”
“He missed—so why didn’t he take another shot?”
“He took two, thought his second shot nailed Pearce right in the head. Only...he seems to have gotten up and walked away. We’re not sure how he got out of there. I guess he could be dead but until it’s confirmed...we got to assume a miss.”
“Who warned Pearce?”
“Some guy he was going to meet. I didn’t know about that. I mean, who it was...”
“Wait. That sounds like you had an encounter with this pain in the ass who warned Pearce.”
“Yes sir.” Tranter looked crestfallen. “We knew Pearce was planning to be in that neighborhood. We didn’t know why. This other guy was on the security camera. We didn’t think he was, you know, important. I didn’t want to just drag him in, make any more noise on the street than we already had. But we found out he was from the same neighborhood—I mean, the Yard. Grew up around Pearce. So...maybe he was more important than we thought...”
“So he was the one meeting with Pearce. And he was the one who warned him. And you were the one who talked to this loudmouth and...let him go.”
Tranter cleared his throat. “Yes sir. He seemed like a...harmless bozo. Maybe a PTSD case out of the war.”
“Indeed. Hold on—the war? Which war?”
“Uh—I don’t know. I saw his Army I.D. Guy was Delta Force.”
“Delta Force?” Verrick sat up straight, ignoring the spike of pain in his back. “Tranter. What was this soldier’s name?”
“Uh...Wolfe. Mick Wolfe.”
Verrick closed his eyes. “Oh my God. I knew I should’ve had him killed up Leavenworth.”
“Sir?”
Verrick gave Tranter his coldest stare. “Tranter. You want to keep getting that extra money every month?”
“Yes sir. I do.”
“And you want to continue living, right?”
Tranter stared coldly back at him. Tranter might be corrupt, but he was tough, and Verrick could tell that Tranter wouldn’t easily stand for that kind of threat.
But Verrick meant it. First of all, he’d made a deal with the Club—it was important that Pearce go down. But then there was Wolfe. Talk about a loose cannon. He had made a big mistake deciding not to have Wolfe killed in prison. He’d been afraid it would awaken suspicion, and people might start looking at Wolfe’s testimony over again. They might start taking Wolfe seriously once he was dead. So Verrick had let him live, confident that destroying the man’s career would destroy the man too.
But here he was again, turning up like a bad penny. Maybe trying to use Pearce to get at his former commanding officer, Major Roger Verrick.
And Verrick wasn’t going to make any more mistakes. He silently vowed to take out anyone who got in his way from now on. There was more at stake here than covering his ass. From his point of view, the destiny of the world was in the balance.
“You better get on it, Tranter,” he said at last. “I have a lot of people backing me. They’ll snuff you out like a twenty-cent birthday candle if you fail. And you will not fail. You will see not only that Aiden Pearce is killed...but Mick Wolfe as well.”
CHAPTER THREE
The Hawk. That’s what they called the north wind that came slashing down the Chicago streets, this time of year. With the sun gone down, now, the wind was colder, bitterer than ever.
It had started when Wolfe had gone into the seediest bar he could find that still had wifi. He was searching through news on his laptop. On the internet jukebox was an old Stones song about “the girl with far away eyes”.
Mick Wolfe listened to the song in a distant way, as he tooled through the web for a way to find a certain son of a bitch. Wolfe was just sitting there at the bar, close to the wall, sipping a boilermaker and searching Chicago news for Verrick.
He glanced at the door whenever someone came in; he was keeping an eye out in case Tranter came looking for him. Tranter—or someone worse.
There on the laptop screen was a picture of Verrick in a powder-blue Italian suit, posing next to a shiny sensor array that was a sample of ctOS-2, the new system Blume Corporation was getting ready to launch. Verrick was Blume’s security head, and this was a security sensor, so it was no shock to see Roger Verrick in the picture, trying to smile and pointing at the metal and crystal cluster. Wolfe wasn’t seeing much else on Verrick that was up to date.
“Hey,” said a sultry voice at his elbow. “I know him! That’s the guy from the Upstairs Room.”
Wolfe twitched a little, managed not to jump out of his seat and turned to look at the girl.
“Ya didn’t even hear me walk up, didja?” she asked, smirking. She had a slight southeast Asian accent, oddly mixed with Chicago working class; was qu
ite small but shapely, her black bob highlighted with silver at the tips, her lips and fingernails painted silver too; her eyes were almond-shaped and chestnut-colored. She had one fist cocked on her hip. “You sure jumped, soldier boy!” She pointed at the U.S. Army tattoo on his forearm.
“I’m not a soldier anymore,” he said, turning to the laptop. Not that kind, anyway. “But you should be, girl, walking up that quiet on people...” Wait, what had she said? “You saying you’ve seen that guy in person, somewhere?” He tapped Verrick’s image on the screen.
“Sure,” she said. “At the Four Clubs. They got a room upstairs—and guess what, they call it the Upstairs Room. Think they’re cute. I could tell you were interested in him, real personal like, the way you were staring at that boring picture. You buy me a Courvoisier?”
That was pretty expensive liquor. But if she knew where Verrick could be found when the bastard was out and about...
Wolfe dug some bills from his pocket. He still had eighty dollars left from the off-the-books construction work he’d done in Kansas City. He put a twenty on the bar. “Courvoisier for the lady,” he told the bartender.
The old man nodded, and shuffled over to get the cognac.
“You can afford Courvoisier?” she asked. “I thought you’d say, how about if I get you a vodka instead! You just got paid, huh? Wanta party?”
“I didn’t say I could afford the Courvoisier,” he said. “But I’ll pay for it.” Wolfe waited till she had climbed up on the stool next to him and had a sip of her drink, then he asked, “So this Four Clubs place...where is it? This Roger Verrick owes me money.”
“I can’t give out the address. That’d get me in trouble. Place is illegal—’course, all the cops know where it is. They’re paid off.”
“Old Chicago tradition.”
“Sure. Anyway...if ya go over to the Loop, ask around near Van Buren, check the scene, I bet ya find it. They won’t letcha in, though. Not unless you got a nice suit at home to put on first—and maybe a razor. You got to look like a high roller to get in there. They got more’n one tough bouncer.”
He’d cross that bouncer when he came to it, he figured. “What’s your name?” he asked the girl.
“Lulu.”
“I’m Mick.”
“Can I call you Mickey?”
“Make you happy, call me Mickey. Look, uh—could you get me into the Four Clubs?”
“Nah, not a chance, they eighty-sixed me outta there ‘cause I wouldn’t let some dumbjacks do something they wanted to do to me. If I go back, Honker’ll pulp my face. That’s what he said he’d do. I don’t even know what pulp your face is but I don’t wanta know.”
“I hear that, alright. This Verrick got anyone special he sees at that place?”
“Sure, if she wasn’t just bragging. Every Friday night, that guy sees Rose Blue. Looks like a model, that girl. Blonde and tall and with the long legs, you know? Dresses in rose color, and blue, when she’s working. Thinks she’s the tippy top, like she got all her clients twisted around her pinky finger...”
Should he try to get into the Four Clubs tonight? He could probably find Verrick if he watched the Blume Building, of course. But he didn’t want to be seen anywhere near Verrick’s turf. Didn’t want to go to that bastard’s center of power unless he had to. It’d be too well protected, too well watched. He needed to catch Verrick off guard.
If a guy wasn’t off-guard in the hooker suite of a mob casino, where was he off-guard?
“So how about that party, Mickey?” Lulu said, elbowing him. “It’s Friday night, time to let your hair down and your pants too.”
“You deserve top dollar, Lulu. Can’t afford it. But here...let me buy you another drink.” He put one more twenty on the bar. That was half his money gone. “You give me your phone number, I’ll get back to you when I get a paycheck...”
“I like that, you’re a guy thinks ahead! Not that many guys think ahead. They think ‘get into her pants right now’. You’re a good guy, Mickey. Hey Harry? Another Courvoisier!”
#
Walking along the southern edge of The Loop, backpack with his laptop in it over one shoulder, Wolfe turned the collar of his coat against The Hawk. Putting up his collar didn’t help much. The cold wind stung his eyes, burned his ears, made his lips feel numb.
If he could find that casino, he’d get out of this November wind. But he might get tossed back into it pretty quick.
He looked around, saw nothing that looked remotely like a casino—but since it was illegal, it wouldn’t look like one on the outside. There were half a dozen casinos in outlying areas but gambling was still illegal within city limits. Didn’t matter, the Four Clubs was run by, guess who, The Club mob, so it didn’t have to be legal. It just had to be discreet. If Wolfe could find it, he might be able to get Verrick alone...
It was Friday night but not much action in this neighborhood; just the occasional cab passing, and the corkscrewing of trash swept along by the Hawk on this corner of Van Buren. That it was Friday, with Verrick likely at the Four Clubs, was one piece of good luck. And there was another bit of luck who was now getting out of that cab in front of that old, unmarked brick office building on the corner: a tall, modelesque blonde in a rose and blue outfit. She wore a tight, upscale rose-colored party dress, with a light blue short jacket, with rose-glass necklace, rose purse and pumps.
If that was Rose Blue, and that antiquated four-story office building on the corner was the front for the Four Clubs casino, then he just might be within spitting distance of Major Roger Verrick. Retired....
Wolfe crossed under the raised tracks of the L Train, angling to pass fairly close to Rose Blue—close enough he caught a whiff of her rose scented perfume—but acting as if he were planning to head around the corner of the building. He put on the groggy “lost junkie” act he’d sometimes used in Morocco when meeting his CIA contact. He didn’t have to try hard at the moment to come off like a street person. Lulu was right, he looked pretty shabby.
He glanced past the elegant call girl as the door opened for her—someone had seen her through the peep hole.
“Evenin’, Honker,” she told the bouncer.
Honker was the bulkiest thug in a tuxedo that Wolfe had ever seen—and he’d seen quite a few at high-end casinos. Honker had a face that looked like it was carved from sandstone, and fists that looked like they could crush rock too.
“Hiya, Rose!” Honker said.
Not much chance of getting past that big lug right this second, Wolfe thought.
Delta Force training or not, Honker would be hard to take down. Of course, there was always placing a bullet in the back of the bouncer’s head, if it came to that.
Trouble is, he didn’t know what type of guy Honker was. Easy enough to assume Honker was a brute when he worked the door at a mob casino. But for all Wolfe knew Honker could be a family man who couldn’t get another job.
Find another way in.
Honker glanced at Wolfe, as he closed the door behind the girl, seemed to discount the “lost junky” immediately—which was how Wolfe had figured it.
Wolfe strolled around the corner, looking up at the roof of the building. Yeah, a couple of Club wiseguys were standing sentry up there. He could see their bundled-up silhouettes, including their AK47s.
Wolfe kept walking, but he drew slowly in toward the building as he went until he was out of the line of sight of the sentries on the roof—unless they leaned over the wall and looked straight down.
Behind the building was a parking lot. There were several limos in it, along with a gold colored SUV that probably belonged to some minor rapper who was into being a Player, several shiny, low slung Porsches and Jaguars, and one late model Escalade. He saw no beaters, no low-income cars, which told him that the employers had to park somewhere else. There was a sign that said Private Parking Only. It didn’’t say parking for what. A chubby cheeked parking attendant in a black watch cap and overcoat was watching something pink and squirmy on a
miniature TV in a little parking lot kiosk. Chances were the parking lot attendant wasn’t going to look up from Bikini Bimbos unless another car drove in.
Wolfe turned, walked down the alley close to the back wall of the building. His boots crunched loudly in gravel as he walked toward a patch of light at a back door. Someone was standing there, smoking a cigarette, keeping the door open enough so they could get back in. Which meant the door locked if it closed and this guy didn’t have a key. Somebody low-level.
Wolfe glanced up, didn’t see the sentries looking down. He walked around the back door as if he were just cutting through the alley—then stopped, staring in sudden recognition at the man in the backdoor. And the man stared back at him with the same mild shock.
It was Kurt O’Malley, an Irish-German guy from the old ‘hood. They’d grown up near each other; they’d shared a six pack or two and double dated, occasionally, just before Wolfe enlisted in the Army.
“Kurt? That you?”
O’Malley was wearing a white jacket, white pants. He was a gangly man with a stubby nose, rusty colored hair and a nicely trimmed goatee. He apparently worked as a bus boy at the casino.
He gawked at Wolfe. “Man, I thought you was in prison!”
“Was. Just a year—Leavenworth. I was framed.”
“Hey man, everybody in prison was framed.” O’Malley laughed.
Wolfe chose not to argue. “Listen, Kurt—I need work. I heard in this place you’re working at here, pretty much everybody has a prison record.”
“The Hell they do!” He sniffed, wiped his nose with a sleeve. “Okay, a lot of guys do. But it’s not like it’s gotta be on your resume, fuh Chris’sakes. You got to pay Santiago to introduce you to the bosses, and maybe they’ll hire you if they need somebody...and maybe they won’t.”
“Who’s Santiago?”
“Kitchen supervisor. You gotta grease his palm and maybe he’ll put you up for a job and maybe not. I borrowed a hundred bucks from my Pop to pay him. This dump gets me more cash than a regular dive though.”
“Not like they give you benefits.”
