Random Victim

by Michael A. Black

  She looks like the kind of babe that could knock you up, he thought as he turned and walked out of the gym. Probably sweats 98 percent testosterone.

  As he headed down the hallway he remembered a joke he’d heard someone tell about a female bodybuilder: She’s working out so she can develop into the man she always wanted to marry. He wondered what they were feeding these gals nowadays that they ended up looking like that. Put her out on the street, he thought as he passed the range, she’d kick a man’s butt, that’s for sure.

  The winding staircase leading to the upstairs offices was just down the hall, and he glanced at his watch. Ten thirty-five. Not too bad a time for his post–grand jury appointment with Captain Sean O’Herlieghy, who would brief him on his reassignment.

  It’s time to get my butt kicked now, Leal thought as he started up the stairs.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A Campaign Issue

  The middle-aged secretary in the outer office glanced at Leal as he approached. Behind her he saw the pebbled translucence of the glass door of the captain’s office. It looked ominous.

  “May I help you?” the secretary asked.

  “Sergeant Frank Leal. I have an appointment with Captain O’Herlieghy this morning.”

  She picked up the phone and pressed one of the intercom buttons. After a moment of hushed conversation, she replaced the phone in its cradle and told him to go right in.

  “The captain’s expecting you,” she said.

  I’ll bet he is, Leal thought. But at least it would be his old mentor giving him the bad news. Maybe he’d let him down easy.

  As Leal reached for the doorknob he saw a shadow behind the opaque glass and suddenly the door swung open. Sean O’Herlieghy stood there, smiling broadly.

  “Frank,” he said, extending his hand. “Get your butt in here.”

  Leal shook hands and was surprised at the captain’s grip. It seemed overly flexed, as if he were trying to impress Leal or maybe break his hand. O’Herlieghy motioned him over to a green chair in front of a big gunmetal gray desk. Leal sat, feeling his mouth begin to dry up. The captain’s desk was relatively uncluttered, except for a two-foot-high pistol-shooting trophy that sat off in the left corner. The gold cop figurine on top had his handgun extended, pointing right at whoever was sitting in the padded green chair. Leal’s mouth suddenly felt a bit drier. But the sooner he got the bad news, probably the better.

  “So how you been, Frank?” O’Herlieghy asked, settling into the chair behind his desk. “You all healed up?” He was a big man in his late fifties with sparse red hair combed over from one side. This gave his face a rather longish appearance, and didn’t adequately hide the numerous places where his scalp shone through from under the long comb-over. His face looked weathered and massive, with an almost bulbous nose and pendulous jowls. A latticework of red veins climbed the tip of his nose and appeared again on his lower right cheek. O’Herlieghy leaned forward and placed his elbows on the desk.

  “I’m okay, Captain. Getting better every day.” He must be setting me up, so he can let me down easy, Leal thought.

  “Good, good. That’s what I hoped you’d say.” O’Herlieghy reached in his desk drawer and removed two cigars, extending them toward Leal.

  “No, thanks, I quit,” Leal said. But he was tempted to take one just to have something to do with his hands.

  O’Herlieghy nodded, stuck one of the cigars in his mouth, and put the other back in the drawer. He took out a lighter and held the flame to the cigar’s rolled tip, puffing copiously to get it started.

  “Times are a-changin’, Frank.” He drew on the cigar and exhaled a cloud of smoke with a smile. “Ahhhh, they don’t allow you to smoke in the damn building anymore, except in designated areas. Ain’t that a bite in the ass?”

  Leal nodded, thinking that the pungent smell made him feel better than it should have.

  “My point being,” O’Herlieghy said, taking another draw, “is that when the times change, you gotta change with them, or you get left behind. It’s a question of being smart. And acting smart, too.”

  Leal watched him closely. He sure was taking his time getting to the point.

  “So that’s why I called you in a little earlier than the rest,” O’Herleighy said. “You and me being from the old neighborhood, and me knowing your dad and all.”

  Leal wondered where this was going.

  “I don’t know if you heard or not,” O’Herlieghy said, tapping the end of the cigar into an ashtray, “but I split up with Dora.”

  “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  O’Herlieghy waved dismissively, then brought the cigar back to his mouth. “It was for the best. Besides, I met somebody new, and she’s made me feel ten years younger. Her name’s Bambi.”

  Bambi, thought Leal. That sounds like the name of the Playmate of the Month.

  O’Herlieghy stood, turning so his profile faced Leal. “I lost fifteen pounds, too.”

  “You look good, Captain,” he said. But he thought, What the hell is going on here? I came expecting to get my ass chewed out and bounced back to uniform, and he’s acting like it’s I-need-a-hug day on Oprah.

  “Ahh, shit, Frank, can that ‘Captain’ shit, will ya? We got too much history for that.”

  Leal grinned and nodded, his hand instinctively patting his pocket for the pack of cigarettes that was no longer there. He leaned back in the chair and clamped his hands together.

  “Like I said, we got history,” O’Herlieghy continued, sitting down again. He took another drag on the cigar. His breath was cloudy when he spoke, staring directly at Leal.

  “But I gotta tell you, telling off that fucking judge was stupid. But I guess you already know that, huh?”

  Leal looked at the floor and nodded.

  “Not that I ain’t come close to doing it myself at times,” O’Herlieghy said with a chuckle. “But do I have to tell you how many markers I had to call in to smooth it over?”

  “No, sir.”

  O’Herlieghy winced slightly, then leaned back in his chair and took another long draw.

  “So, you know that the sheriff’s up for reelection next month, right?” he asked. “Well, with Shay gaining in the suburbs and parts of the city, it’s gonna be a close one. Real close.”

  Leal nodded.

  “Shay’s making a big issue of the Walker case,” O’Herlieghy said. “You’re familiar with it, right?”

  Leal recalled reading about it: Miriam Walker, female judge, wife of a prominent businessman, and a high-ranking board member of the nonprofit Coalition of Women Against Domestic Violence had disappeared the previous spring. Her body had been subsequently found in a pond in unincorporated Palos Township.

  “Shay’s been making it into a campaign issue,” O’Herlieghy said. “Saying that if he’s elected he’ll get to the bottom of it.” He leaned back and blew out a large smoke ring. “So Sheriff O’Hara’s given the green light to the formation of a special task force to work the case.”

  Oh, my God, Leal thought, his fingers gripping the arms of the chair. “You mean I’m not going back into uniform?”

  “Uniform? Nah. You’re going to the Walker task force. At least until the election.” He grinned broadly. “Didn’t I tell you I’d take care of you when I came to see you in the hospital?”

  Leal had been so doped up on pain medication that he barely remembered anything of that period. But this was almost too good to be true.

  “Sean,” he said, his voice cracking, “I really owe you—”

  “Ah, forget it,” O’Herlieghy said, tapping some residual ash into the tray. His expression got serious. “But keep one thing in mind. We can’t afford to stand around holding our cocks on this one. We’re putting a couple of inexperienced people in the unit with you and Tom Ryan—he’s the other sergeant—but the outcome of the election just might be riding on this.”

  Leal nodded, then asked the question. “What do you mean ‘inexperienced’? Wouldn’t it be
better to put some real no-nonsense dicks on it with us?”

  O’Herlieghy licked his lips before he spoke. “Well, part of the idea is for the sheriff to look…progressive and all. You know, giving new people a chance to show what they can do.”

  The phone rang before he could explain any more. He answered it and suddenly his whole face seemed to melt into a smile. “Hiya, babe. Just a minute.” His big hand covered the mouthpiece, and he said to Leal, “Go out and get a fucking haircut and report back here down in the sheriff’s pressroom at thirteen hundred sharp for a press conference.”

  He went back to cooing into the phone.

  Leal stood up quickly and left, closing the door gently behind him. He winked at the secretary behind the desk and smiled as she blushed. As he walked down the hall toward the stairway, he felt like jumping up and clicking his heels like Gene Kelly in one of those old musicals.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Catch-22

  Leal pulled back into the court parking lot at twelve fifty, his hair freshly cut, and his mustache trimmed neatly. “Make it look politically correct,” Leal had told the barber. The guy had smirked a bit and gone to work. The result was a bit shorter than Leal would have liked, but he figured the almost-military style would make him look like Mr. Conservative. His old drug contacts probably wouldn’t even recognize him.

  Several news vans were parked by the front doors, their antennae raised in anticipation of the feed-in to the afternoon news broadcasts. Leal strode by the technicians preparing their camcorders and took the steps with a jaunty bounce. He went immediately to the public information room on the first floor and saw Sean O’Herlieghy standing by the door, packing tobacco into a pipe.

  “When did you take up pipe smoking?” Leal asked.

  O’Herlieghy flashed a grin. “Frank, glad you’re on time. The hair looks sharp.” He held up the pipe. “This is Bambi’s idea. Says it makes me look distinguished. Not extinguished. Besides, she likes the smell.”

  Without even having met the captain’s new love, Leal had the feeling that his old mentor and friend was heading for heartbreak. No fool like an old fool, he thought. But he knew better than to try to interfere or offer unwanted advice, especially about such a delicate subject. He was grateful to Sean, though, for setting up this great opportunity after the fall from grace.

  O’Herlieghy patted him on the back and they stepped into the sheriff’s anteroom. But as they entered the room the hairs on the back of Leal’s neck went up. In front of him were four people: a woman, a black guy, a white guy, and Paul Brice. Brice and Leal went back a long way.

  “Frank, you know Lieutenant Brice, don’t you?” O’Herlieghy asked. “He’s running the task force.”

  Leal knew him, all right. From when he’d first started his stint at the county jail. Brice had been a sergeant back then. “King Shit” of all the jail guards. Someone everybody—guards and prisoners alike—stepped aside from. With a barrel-like chest and oak-tree arms, Brice liked to show off his prowess by challenging some of the bigger prisoners, with their jail-house bodies, to bench-pressing contests. He always won, one time doing 425 pounds with accomplished ease. But when Leal had fingered one of Brice’s buddies to internal affairs for smuggling drugs into the jail, and the guard had lost his job because of it, Leal went to the top of Brice’s shit list.

  Leal’s tours of duty became hellish as Brice made snide comments about stool pigeons, and how they were the lowest of the low. Finally, they’d been told to settle it by a senior commander. The commander, an ex-marine, suggested that they put on the boxing gloves and climb into the ring for a little “physical training exercise.” Just before they squared off, Brice had leaned in to touch gloves, but instead knocked Leal’s hands down sharply and said in a low voice, “I’m gonna beat the dog shit out of you.”

  Leal, a lean one-eighty, looked almost frail next to the heavily muscled Brice. But Leal, who had boxed golden gloves and been on an army boxing team, used his quickness to avoid the bigger man’s punishing blows. Sticking and moving, Leal’s jab repeatedly stung his opponent and set up overhand rights.

  “Brice is getting hit with so many rights, he’s begging for a left,” one of the onlookers said.

  Despite the large, sixteen-ounce gloves that minimized the blows, it soon became apparent that if anyone was getting the “dog shit” beat out of them, it sure wasn’t Leal. Brice continued to absorb the punishment, following the wispy Leal around the ring on sodden legs that looked ready to crumble. The fight finally ended when the supervisor, tired of seeing the big sergeant used for a punching bag, stepped in and declared the fight a draw. Leal had a slight bump on his cheek from a head butt, but Brice’s face was as swollen as a catcher’s mitt. Word quickly spread, and the fight did little to end the animosity. Both men gave the other a wide berth, and soon they were each respectively transferred to the sheriff’s police section and out of the jail. It was a big department, and their paths hadn’t crossed in the intervening years. Until now.

  With Brice running the show, this wasn’t just the catch Leal had worried about; it was catch-22.

  Brice still looked formidable. His shoulders had always been huge and his chest looked as solid as a wine keg. But his hair had thinned and turned steel gray. Large wrinkles fanned out from his eyes and bracketed his mouth. He held out a large right hand toward Leal, who accepted it.

  “Lieutenant,” Leal said, nodding in acknowledgment.

  As Brice grabbed Leal’s hand, it was all he could do not to wince. Brice had snared Leal’s fingers in a grip of iron, pumping the hand slowly and squeezing until Leal felt like going up on his toes. It was an old trick of Brice’s that Leal had forgotten about. Brice always called it “The Sissy Shake.”

  “Good to be working with you again,” Brice said. He turned slightly, still holding Leal’s hand, and pointed to the others in the room. “Let me introduce you to Tom Ryan, Joe Smith, and Olivia Hart. This is Frank Leal, everybody.” He punctuated each introduction with another bone-crushing squeeze.

  Leal managed to extricate his hand from Brice’s and waved an acknowledgment. Ryan he knew slightly, having met him before, but the other two were strangers. Or were they? Suddenly he recognized the woman. She was the bodybuilder he’d seen pumping iron in the gym, only now she didn’t look quite so muscle-bound in a white blouse and navy blue skirt. She held a matching navy jacket folded over her arm.

  Tom Ryan stepped over to him and flashed a quick grin as they shook hands. He was in his late thirties with a slender build and wire-rim glasses. His brown hair was flecked with a little gray, and his mustache was bushy. The black guy, Joe Smith, looked a decade younger than either Ryan or Leal, and appeared to be in good shape. He was tall, with a dark complexion and a razor-edge part cut into his very short hair. Leal noted that Smith’s grip was friendly and strong.

  Good, thought Leal. Maybe he can help get me into better shape if we get paired together.

  Hart moved forward to shake also, but Brice interceded.

  “You can get acquainted later,” he said. “Right now we’ve got to get in the pressroom for the sheriff.” He turned and led them down the hall, and then stopped abruptly. “Let me make this perfectly clear. At the conference nobody say nothing. Let Sheriff O’Hara handle the news media. He just wants us to be in the background as he introduces the new investigative team heading up the Walker case. Understand?” He seemed to glare at Leal in particular for a moment.

  They walked down to the official pressroom. Reporters were just setting up in front of the podium with the dark green curtain draped behind it. Some cameramen perked up at their entrance, but deflated as Brice just shook his head.

  “Ryan and Smith, sit over there,” Brice said. “Leal and Hart, on the other side of the podium.”

  Leal and Hart glanced at each other. He noticed her eyes widen slightly and a quick smile flicked at the corners of her mouth.

  She looks pretty nervous, Leal thought. I hope she knows her stuff. />
  The muffled conversations ended abruptly as Sheriff O’Hara strode in from an adjacent doorway with an un-dersheriff trailing behind him. As the harsh lights washed over O’Hara’s square features and dark, slicked-back hair, he flashed a practiced smile at the reporters and stepped up on the podium, taking his place behind the lectern, which had been specially modified to offset O’Hara’s rather short stature. The American flag and the Cook County flag stood at either side of the speaker’s position. A dozen flashes popped silently, and the camcorders were shouldered as the cameramen began their simultaneous taping. O’Hara continued smiling as the undersheriff announced that a special task force had been assembled to take over the investigation of the Miriam Walker homicide, and a limited number of questions would be answered after a short statement by the sheriff.

  Leal watched as O’Hara fumbled with his notes, then looked over at them and nodded. Donald O’Hara had always portrayed himself as a no-nonsense cop. “I’m just Get-the-Job-Done O’Hara,” he was fond of saying at press conferences. And this might once have been true, Leal thought, but like most politicians who succeed themselves in elective office term after term, the street savvy and investigative acumen that had once made O’Hara a good cop had long since been glitzed over by high-priced PR firms selected to ensure the sheriff’s continued election. But several recent high-profile setbacks in the sheriff’s department had made some cracks appear in the highly protected image. And O’Hara’s slick, media-conscious opponent, Michael Shay, had capitalized on these cracks to mount a skillful campaign depicting O’Hara as a faltering, out-of-touch official. Michael Shay, a new leader for the new millennium, the voice-over on his TV ads said, emphasizing Shay’s rugged, blond handsomeness as his image was superimposed on the screen. This in contrast to O’Hara’s middle-aged baldness and jowly appearance had the incumbent lagging behind in the polls.