Bad Reputation: The Complete Collection

by Matt Hader

He politely ignored her statement and stepped to the windows of the suite. He gazed down on Michigan Avenue and the lake in the near distance.

  As he looked to the right he could see the late afternoon sun glistening off of the highly polished, silver, “bean” sculpture in Millennium Park. He smiled at the sight of children running all around it, checking their reflections in the surface of the piece and mugging for their parents’ cameras.

  “You should see this,” he said.

  After she didn’t make a move to the window, he added, “I wasn’t being presumptuous. You’re taking the master suite, that’s what I had planned.”

  She didn’t believe him, but she smiled and nodded. As she stepped to the window her breath was taken away, partially from her fear of heights, but mostly from the spectacular view.

  She said, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Everything looks good from this angle,” he said. He took a couple of deep breaths and continued, “If you think I’m coming on too strong, I’m sorry. I really did think that this suite would work for us.”

  “I’m still trying to get my footing.”

  “Sure, I get it.”

  “There’s so much that I have to figure out before I get serious with anyone.”

  “Can I ask you one question?”

  “I guess,” she said.

  “Is there even a chance?”

  Her hesitation said it all. He smirked and spun on his heels, heading back toward the middle of the room.

  “John…”

  “Hey, I almost forgot. I’ve got to pick something up. I’ll be right back,” he said nonchalantly as he picked up his overnight bag and walked it into the guest room.

  When he emerged a few moments later he wore a blue windbreaker with something bulging out underneath it.

  “Go ahead and put your stuff in the master bedroom, relax, and I’ll be right back,” he said.

  Before she could even answer, John walked from the suite.

  ***

  “This is all I need,” said the baby face mask-wearing John as he slid $3,500 in neatly bundled $20 bills back across the counter to the terrified, female bank teller.

  He stuffed the remaining $10,000 into a white, plastic grocery bag and walked from the bank.

  He was pleased with himself by the results in this past week of pretending, twice to date, of being armed; first, at Keith Michaels’ house in Inverness, and now, here at this State Street bank branch.

  If he was being honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he liked knowing that he would be the only one hurt if things went down the toilet during the commission of one of his crimes.

  John exited and turned right on the sidewalk, pulling the mask partially up on his face. As he neared the alleyway next to the building, someone stepped in front of him blocking his path.

  It was Amy, and she looked both stricken and terrified.

  “What…are you doing?” she whispered.

  “Get on the fucking ground!”

  Out of his peripheral vision to his left, John could see a uniformed cop crouching and aiming his gun from across State Street.

  John shoved past Amy and sprinted as best he could down the alley. The young, Chicago Police officer was almost a half block away when he shouted his demand, so John had just the hint of a lead.

  As he hobbled and jogged down the alley, he turned back and could see the Chicago Police officer tug Amy from the opening of the alley and safely around the corner of the building. The Chicago Police officer poked his head back around the corner, but John was gone. He spoke into his shoulder-mounted radio, “I lost him in the alley to the south of the building.”

  There was an intersecting, northbound alley coming up on the right. John made the turn and up ahead he could see the heavy, westbound vehicle traffic on the one-way Randolph Street.

  He had worked this all out in advance while sitting in the conference room of the Kid Crew offices. From there, he had a vantage point a hundred feet above and could see everything he needed to know to correctly pull this job off.

  His plan was to use the maze of one-way streets in the Loop to his advantage. He would be on foot and heading against the flow of traffic, hoping that it would confound the police who’d be arriving in vehicles. With his numb feet and legs, and searing back and hip pain, he needed every advantage he could get.

  As he neared Randolph, he peeled off the windbreaker but held onto it. He reached into the white, plastic grocery bag and pulled out a blue-colored, plastic bag and transferred the money from the white to the blue one. He tossed the baby face mask and white bag into a dumpster as he stepped past and made an eastbound turn onto the Randolph Street sidewalk.

  Ahead he could see several police cars speeding southbound on State Street.

  John crossed over Randolph in the middle of the block and continued heading east toward Michigan Avenue.

  The traffic light in front of him turned red. As he waited for the “walk” sign to illuminate at the corner of State and Randolph, John noticed a shabbily-dressed, homeless man asking for change.

  John approached him and handed him the windbreaker and said, “I’ll give you $20 if you put that on right now.”

  “Back off…”

  “I’m serious.”

  “You some weird prick who gets off on this shit?”

  “I want to help you. That’s all,” said John.

  The homeless man studied John for just a moment, then looked south to where the police activity was escalating. When John didn’t want to follow his gaze, he peered back at John with a knowing smirk and said, “$200.”

  With no time to haggle, John grabbed the money from the blue bag and handed it to the homeless man who quickly flung the coat on.

  The light changed and John continued east on Randolph Street. The windbreaker-wearing homeless man immediately quickstepped it northbound on State Street, giggling.

  John looked south on State Street and could see five or six Chicago police cars parked willy-nilly at all angles directly in front of the bank. Amy was being questioned, along with a few other bystanders. But what John saw across from the bank stopped him cold in his tracks.

  Henry was being held back by a Chicago cop as he stood in the front of another crowd of spectators across the street. He appeared very agitated and raked his hands through his hair as he implored for the Chicago cop to allow him across the street to give Amy some comfort and aid.

  Amy, on the other hand, wasn’t even paying attention to the questions being thrown at her by yet another cop. She had her eyes on Henry.

  Finally, when a suit-wearing bull of a detective confronted Amy, she actually appeared to be responding to the officer’s questions. But she happened to peer in John’s direction and froze when she caught a glimpse of him. When the detective tried to follow her line of sight, John kept walking.

  John had to make it back to the hotel so he could regroup and figure out a way to explain this all to Amy. Or to await his inevitable arrest after Amy told the police who he was and where he was staying.

  Now out of the mask, the windbreaker and carrying a different-colored bag, John attempted to stroll as leisurely as he could back to his Michigan Avenue hotel room to await his fate.

  “Hey, you! Stop!”

  John spun to see the same, young, Chicago Police officer who had initially confronted him outside the bank. The officer was now cautiously edging his way toward John with his police issue Glock .40 in his hand. He wasn’t pointing the gun, but he was ready to use it if he had to.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “Oh, hey, officer, I was at the Best Buy.” The smiling and cordial John took a few steps toward the officer as he held the bag open, but the cop was still 50 feet away and couldn’t see inside.


  “Got a new iTouch. I have the receipt. Is there a problem?” The cop waved John off and turned to continue his search. John wasted no time in hobbling back to his hotel.

  CHAPTER 41

  Jimmy was pissed off. So angry he could scream.

  He had to hold it together until this Paladin detective, Shane Thompson, got out of his face to unload his frustrations, though.

  It had started out as any other quiet, second shift day on the job. A few vandalism reports involving knocked over garbage cans and a lost dog to locate. Not a problem.

  As it turned out, the vandalism reports were related to the missing (hungry) dog. When he found the errant pooch, it was in the process of toppling yet another can on Grove Avenue. After he grabbed up the dog and put him in the back seat of the police squad car, the dog let go with the digested remnants of its garbage-collecting ways. So the day soon turned to shit – and it was getting shittier and shittier by the moment.

  Now as he sat at his police department desk attempting to eat his 6 p.m. “lunch break” meal of peanut butter and ham on dark rye bread, the square-jawed Detective Thompson had totally ruined his entire day.

  “So you are familiar with the subject?”

  “He’s not a subject, he’s my younger brother,” said Jimmy.

  “Yeah, right…that’s what I had heard.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Do you have a close relationship with your brother?”

  That was it, Jimmy had had enough. He stood and took a deep, cleansing breath.

  “Listen, Thompson, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Either tell me what’s going on as a professional courtesy or get the hell out of my face.”

  “Why the anger, Officer Caul?”

  “Please, call me Jimmy.”

  The chief poked his head from his office and said, “Everything okay, Flunky- Ah, Caul?”

  “This asshole thinks-,” but he couldn’t go on.

  “What? What’s going on, Jimmy?” continued the chief.

  “This is bullshit…,” Jimmy said as he motioned for the chief to mind his own business.

  Even the chief was leery of Jimmy when he was in a mood. The other cops in Balmoral were aware of his military past and the stories of the men he single handedly obliterated on that Panamanian beach so many years ago.

  Sure, everyone on the force would tease Caul from time to time, but when he sported a face carved in anger, like he was doing now, the smarter co-workers let him be. The chief gave Jimmy and Thompson a polite little wave and ducked back into his office.

  Jimmy lost his appetite, and as he moved to toss the remainder of his lunch into a garbage can near the doorway, he continued with, “I’ve got rounds to make.”

  “Hold up,” said Thompson.

  “Yeah?”

  Jimmy crossed his arms and awaited the Paladin Detective’s next move.

  “Just answer me this, okay? Do you think your brother’s capable of doing something like armed robbery?”

  “Anyone and everyone is capable of that.”

  “Have you heard of the Baby Face Robber?”

  Jimmy stared for a moment at the Paladin Detective before howling with laughter - more from the sudden need to release some steam - but it was a convincing enough tactic that Thompson smiled.

  “Okay, Caul, sorry to put all this shit on you. If you hear anything, though, give me a shout,” said Thompson as he placed his business card on Jimmy’s desk.

  “Who put you on my brother?”

  Shane Thompson shrugged, grinned and made his way out of the police department offices.

  Jimmy watched him leave before stepping back over to his desk and sliding Thompson’s business card into his palm. He crumpled it up and was just about to throw it across the room, when he stopped himself.

  CHAPTER 42

  Tyler had taken to openly following Enright.

  He didn’t trust the sleazebag ex-cop, especially after he pulled that shit with his mom back at the cheap motel. He figured out what was going on, even if his uncle Lou had lied and said nothing had happened between his mother and Enright.

  He was now on a mission to shut him down. He could care less if Enright knew he was tailing him because Tyler wasn’t afraid of him. He outweighed Enright by at least 60 pounds of solid muscle. If they had to throw down, Tyler would do what he’d have to do and worry about the consequences later.

  He figured a nice, tight and crushing bear hug would probably do the trick with the least amount of external blood loss and mess.

  What he didn’t count on, as he stepped nearer to him, was having Enright kneel and quickly pull a tiny Beretta .380 pistol from the ankle holster strapped to his pasty leg.

  The older man had shoved the gun under the surprised Tyler’s chin and leaned in close to the kid’s face. This happened when Tyler’s anger had boiled over, and he called out Enright in a parking lot near the Balmoral train station.

  Enright did size up the kid and knew that his Krav Maga skills could do some damage to the muscular teen, but he would probably work up a sweat in the process. And his stomach was a little upset from the Gyro sandwich he had earlier at Dink’s Diner, so the gun would do the trick this time.

  “Okay, kid, now what? It’s your move…”

  “Fuck you. Pull the trigger,” said Tyler.

  Enright lowered the gun and took a step back. He gave Tyler a look of admiration.

  “You’re stopping today. You no longer work for me. And you leave my mom alone.”

  “Yeah, yeah, and if I don’t you’ll kill me or some bullshit, right?”

  “That’s right. If my dad finds out about what you pulled with me and my mom, I’ll do it myself. You can’t let him find out about any of this. Keep the $4,500. Just drop it. Keep the money I don’t give a shit about that. But I ain’t paying you that extra ten grand, though. Especially after the shit you’ve pulled.”

  Tyler was an intelligent kid but obviously not very worldly. Enright could tell the moment they met at the ice cream and donut place. He could plainly see that the young man had always enjoyed a cushy, suburban existence. It just oozed from his pores.

  Enright knew, shit, anyone could discern immediately, that Tyler could do some serious damage if allowed to take it to that physical level. He was huge. But he had a blind spot when it came to his family’s honor.

  Anyone else would have easily seen that Enright was never going to stop messing with them and their loved ones, but Tyler, Tyler seemed to actually believe him when he said, “I’m done messing with you, kid. I don’t need you anymore. I did what you paid me to do, and I found the guy. You do what you want from this point on. I’ll go my way, okay? I’ll leave your family be.”

  Tyler was skeptical but seemed to be buying what Enright was selling. He said, “Just leave ‘em alone…”

  As the kid stepped back to his Jeep Cherokee, Enright smiled to himself and thought, “What an asshole. I’m going to up the ask from Tyler’s pop to $100,000 now. Stupid shit. Hell, I may even get that piece of ass from his fine mom, too.”

  CHAPTER 43

  The vibe in the conference room for the second day of Kid Crew instruction was, for the lack of a better word, weird.

  John tried to plead with his eyes for her to just acknowledge him. Henry paid extra special and, frankly, annoying attention to the crime victim/witness, Amy. Henry carried on as if she was an expectant mother more than a student, constantly asking if she was comfortable, getting her water, etc. John thought it nauseating.

  Amy was completely pissed off at John, but she had a lot on her mind and a ton of calculating to do. Yes, she was extremely angry for having been vaulted into his robbery scheme, even if it was on the periphery of the crime.

  He was
the goddamned Baby Face Robber from the news. But she couldn’t help but admire John’s wile and guts when he robbed and got away cleanly from the downtown Chicago bank. The very same bank she was looking at now from the windows in the Kid Crew conference room. It was quite obvious that she hadn’t turned John in for committing the crime the day before.

  And it was also clear that she was still on board for managing the Kid Crew. She really needed this to happen, and for the moment, that outweighed any sniggling thought of having John arrested.

  He was the Baby Face Robber. God, he was the perfect person to pull off such a scheme, she thought. He was handsome, a little unassuming, and friendly, too. Without the mask on or armed with a pistol, no one would ever suspect him. But she also hadn’t lived in Balmoral her entire life. The townspeople there would utter his name without hesitation if asked if he was capable of such a thing. Mr. James at the BMW dealership was proof of that.

  He had awaited his fate for two hours in that lovely and lonely hotel suite on Michigan Avenue the night before.

  He purposefully wore a simple, tight, white t-shirt and jeans so when the police did storm the room, they’d see instantly that he wasn’t hiding any weapons.

  He took chances during his robberies, but he didn’t have a death wish. His overnight bag was packed and sitting by the door of the suite, and the door itself was propped open by the secondary, flip-locking system. This would allow the police easy access.

  And when the door did finally push open, John closed his eyes and raised his hands, awaiting his imminent arrest. The clinking and clanging of rolling carts and the friendly voices of Amy, the chef and his assistant, made him open an eye. He stood there and blinked a lot, lowered his arms, smiled and said, “Hey, dinner’s here. Great.”

  After the chef and his cooking partner had left, John and Amy, sat on opposite love seats with a coffee table between them, and dug hungrily into their meals. It was if they hadn’t eaten in days.