Start Shooting

by Charlie Newton

  “Favor to who?”

  Ruben looks down his nose at his little brother, reminding me who was the man of the house after Dad died. Who kept the wolf from the door and who made sure Mom and I always had what we needed while Ruben often went without. “A favor to me.”

  “My brother’s a mover and shaker? Not a homicide detective making ninety a year?”

  On Ruben’s left, a man exits a limo with a bodyguard-assistant and strides toward us in a $3,000 suit. This is the man who just delivered a billion-dollar Olympic sponsorship from Chicago’s newest skyscraper, Furukawa Industries. He has a perfect haircut, wire-rim glasses, a light tan, and a 2016 Olympics pin in his lapel. Toddy Pete Steffen could be the mayor of Dublin or the CEO of General Motors. He is, for sure, a cop’s worst nightmare before facing IAD on Monday morning.

  Mr. Steffen stops, his hand light on my shoulder, and smiles at lawyer Barlow. “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. Why do I pay, if you never work?”

  Mr. Barlow raises his glass and adds an Irish accent. “And here’s to ya, Peter.”

  When Mr. Steffen ran the First Ward he was referred to as the Prince of Darkness, and still is. Cops can go to prison because they shook hands with him once or stood next to him at a parade. Mr. Steffen grins. “My office tomorrow? We’ve an Olympic rebid to win.”

  “Ten AM, bells on and biscuits in the bag.”

  “Enjoy your dinner, gentlemen.” Mr. Steffen nods to Ruben and me. “And any extra effort to quell our gang problem in the 12th District would be greatly appreciated.” He squeezes my shoulder, then turns toward two well-dressed Japanese men as the maître d’ says, “Dr. Ota is inside, Mr. Steffen.”

  Ruben seems surprised at the reference to Dr. Ota, the Furukawa CEO headlining today’s paper, and turns to look. “T.P.’s looking fresh as ever.”

  Mr. Barlow adds, “Toddy Pete joins the immortals if the Olympics rethink Chicago.” Mr. Barlow cuts to me and taps the newspaper. “If we beat the Herald and the paper doesn’t go Chapter 7, we will be well paid. If we don’t beat them, Officer Vargas, the Herald will put you and your brother in prison. Ten years minimum, maybe life.”

  “No offense, but tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Late this afternoon, counsel for the Duprees filed to exhume Coleen Brennan’s body.”

  My eyes close. Barlow waits, then surrounds the images with: “The federal lawsuit filed by Anton Dupree’s family names the city, your brother, and three fellow officers for wrongful death. It’s possible the Herald will join the Dupree motion for exhumation, or already has, as a silent partner. What that means to you is that although you are not yet named with your brother in the Duprees’ wrongful-death suit, you will be added if the Herald’s evidence against you is only moderately compelling.”

  I open my eyes, disgusted. “The Dupree lawsuit is civil. What’s their plan, take my shirt?”

  “The Dupree lawsuit is civil, but the accusations the Herald says they will make are criminal. First-degree murder, rape, suppression of evidence. I assume you’ve been contacted by IAD?”

  Nod.

  “I’d be willing to bet the Herald is already sharing whatever criminal evidence they have with the Duprees, who already have civil depositions scheduled for Monday. And a civil trial date shortly after that.”

  “And?”

  Barlow cants his head an inch. “Do you want to face the U.S. attorney under oath? Because federal criminal court is where the civil suit leads if the Herald gets the public behind the case. U.S. Attorney Jo Ann Merica already hates the Chicago Police Department and wants to be governor—she’ll file a criminal case against you and Ruben, crucify the corrupt Chicago Police Department, force a deserved restitution to the family of a retarded black man wrongfully executed, then convict the real monsters who ‘raped a thirteen-year-old Irish girl to death.’ ” Pause. “Forget governor, Jo Ann rights so many wrongs she could run for president.”

  Ruben sips his Scotch, nodding, no smile. I ask if Mr. Barlow is representing him.

  Ruben says, “Not yet. City’s paying for my civil fling with the Duprees.”

  I nod down LaSalle Street at city hall. “Will the city stay with you after the Herald says you and I are John Gacy?”

  Ruben sets his glass by the Chianti-bottle candle and removes his toothpick. “Now you have it, buey. Before today’s paper, Ruben Vargas was either hero cop/patrón del barrio; or a cop who knew too many of the bad people; or a racist cop—all depended on whose story they were selling that day. No six o’clock news there. But in here”—Ruben taps the Herald—“they make the brothers Vargas into monstruos who have to die … then, esé, you and I día del muerto.”

  Mr. Barlow adds, “One way or another.”

  A cute waitress stops next to my shoulder, hesitates because it’s obvious I’m some kind of cop and on duty, then asks if I want a drink anyway. I tell her no thanks. Mr. Barlow spins his finger for another round. She leaves and I tell him: “I knew Coleen when we were kids. I liked her, a lot. I don’t hurt people I like.” I cut to my older brother in his expensive sport coat and concerned expression, then back. “But I have no problem hurting people I don’t like. So I’ll do my job until the department or the city decides to submarine me. If and when that happens, maybe we’ll talk.”

  Barlow stares. “Suit yourself. I can’t make you want to survive.”

  “Take care of my older brother. He thinks being a Mexican legend makes him immune.”

  “No. Ruben knows better, that’s why we’re here. He knows this will get ugly. They won’t play fair and neither can you.”

  Instead of standing like I should, I sit back. “What do you have in mind, counselor?”

  “The investigator from Texas working with Moens is an ex-cop with nasty Mexico history that he doesn’t know I can prove. The Pink Panther, storied crime reporter for the Herald, continues an on-again, off-again lesbian affair with her ex–business partner in the L7, Julie McCoy.”

  “That the kind of lawyer you are?”

  “The ownership of the Herald is negotiating a bankruptcy plea that will invalidate its pension requirements and generate a sale to a U.K. conglomerate. Headlines help the sale. You and your brother will be dragged through the sewer. ‘Tabloid’ won’t quite describe it.”

  “I don’t hide behind character assassination.”

  “Noble, but child murder and rape accusations require rebuttal.” Mr. Barlow adopts his jury voice: “Either we fight their salacious innuendo and hyperbole masquerading as ‘fact’ with similar tools or—”

  “Why not use the truth?”

  Barlow blinks, confused. “Because the truth doesn’t matter. Winning matters.”

  I look down the patio at customers busy with their own conversations. Being somewhere else would be good, and by Monday night—after IAD, federal depositions, and the Herald’s next installment of “MONSTER”—probably someone else.

  Barlow continues. “Bobby, I can’t help you or your brother without your cooperation. That’s a decision the two of you have to make. But be assured this fight will only be won dirty, and not without you and Ruben taking some hits.”

  Ruben crosses himself. “Or we can sit back and take it up the ass. Enjoy being mártires.”

  “I’m not a martyr … nor am I an asshole, most of the time.” I nod at Barlow. “Thanks for your time and advice.” Then to Ruben: “Talk to you tomorrow.”

  Ruben chews his toothpick, stands, and walks me to my car. “What kinda questions your new girls askin’?”

  “Officer Hahn asked about Moens and the Herald—if it bothered me. Today’s paper was on my seat; she was just making conversation. Did say something interesting, though. Furukawa’s run by Japanese guys. How come they’re backing Chicago against Tokyo for the Olympics?”

  “Above my pay grade. Anything about me?”

  “Nope.” My phone vibrates. I answer.

  Buff says, “Are we sober?”

  “Twelve-pack ain’t nothing for a musicia
n.”

  “We’re a go for the Latin Kings corner in thirty minutes. Train tracks and Damen—you and Hahn—now.”

  “Ten-four.” I flip the phone shut.

  Ruben grips my neck like when we were kids. “Where you at tonight?”

  “Ashland and Twenty-first. Got me a red Toyota, buy money, and two girls the commander wants to make famous. Buff thinks it’s the beginning of an Operation Hammer.”

  Ruben shakes his head. “No more ghetto. Won’t need us, we’ll all be one big happy Olympic village.” He squeezes my neck. “Think about what Mr. Barlow said.”

  “Don’t need to. I’m not joining the rape-and-pillage club.”

  Ruben slaps my head, then hugs me tighter than usual. “By this time tomorrow, little brother, you won’t know a soul who doesn’t think the rape-and-pillage club is exactly where you and I belong.” He pushes me to arm’s length. “And watch out for those girls. They ain’t in your team to make conversation.”

  FRIDAY, 9:00 PM

  Officer Hahn buckles her seat belt. “How’d dinner work out with your brother?”

  “All good. New plan. Latin Kings are a go. We’re meeting by the train tracks.”

  She nods, less than excited. Her right hand removes a plastic sack from a rugby kit bag she threw in our Crown Vic—the sack contains the wire and harness she’ll be wearing. “Had a hot dog with Lopez. She told me we’re a go.” Little blond smile. “Guess some of the boys decided to talk to her.”

  I make a G with my right hand. “I’m smarter.”

  Hahn pops me her version of the FBI gang sign. “ ‘Always and forever, homes; blood in, blood out.’ ”

  I turn left at the next corner, make my new team member forty-sixty undercover like Ruben says, but stay with the I Love This Gang moment: “ ‘We da G; we die under those colors.’ ”

  She laughs. “Been shot once, that was plenty.”

  “Me, too. BB gun. Hurt like a son of a bitch.”

  Hahn smiles big and turns away, hiding the grin in her window.

  “What? All of a sudden you’ll hate putting me in Marion?”

  She stays with the window, laughing now, and nods.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m not guilty of anything the feds could care about.”

  She turns back, still smiling. “What? Ruben and you go to confession?”

  FRIDAY, 10:00 PM

  Sergeant Buff Anderson, T-shirt, jeans, and body armor, stands between four Crown Vics and the Burlington Northern tracks. His posture is street-boss confident, but there’s concern in his face that his tone matches. “The girls make the first buy.” He thumbs over his shoulder at the red Toyota Vice probably lent us. “Lopez drives the beater. Hahn buys. We four-way the corner—Vargas and Cowin from the west; me and Jewboy coming east; Candy and Romero on Ashland from the bridge; Gonzalez and Fez down from the Jewel.”

  Good plan; makes sense and should; Buff knows how to organize a gunfight, be it in the jungle or the city. The girls doing the buy is stupid and dangerous, and I’m sure he hates it, but our new commander wants her girls in the gang crimes and TAC units with street victories as their pedigree, not affirmative action.

  “This is the commander’s mission.” Buff looks at the girls. “Her choice to put you in the buy car.” Five-second pause. “Assuming you ain’t feds, Do. Not. Die. Am I clear?”

  Hahn smiles, Lopez doesn’t, the adrenaline apparent in their faces.

  Buff checks both his pistols, then looks directly at the girls again. “The Kings are stone killers; this corner’s hot. Iraq hot. Am I clear?” Buff waits for the girls to nod; he doesn’t have to wonder about us. “All of you who checked shotguns, I want ’em chambered and in the front seat. These assholes go live on the girls, come at ’em all the way. We’ll worry about our Olympic image tomorrow.”

  Lopez finds no solace in her über-Olympic value. “If it’s that bad we should have marines.”

  Buff continues. “Nothing on you two that says La Raza. No Spanish, you’re white chicks from the burbs.”

  Lopez straightens, looking at her hands, then Buff.

  “I’m not the commander. If you’re calling in sick, do it now.”

  Lopez glances at Hahn, who shakes her head. Lopez strips her vest and belt to become a dope-buying civilian, pulls her Glock, checks it, and slides it into her waistband. She frowns at me … like her situation is somehow my fault, then glances at Hahn again.

  Hahn says, “Girls Gone Wild.”

  Jewboy grins big, “ ’Ats the spirit.” He points at Lopez’s chest. “Now that we’re working together you could flash me, you know, team spirit and stuff … sort of.”

  Lopez keeps her shirt on. Hahn strips her vest and belt, hands both to me, and asks for help taping up her wire. Lopez watches. Again, I get the odd flash I’m in some kind of spiderweb three-way with these two strangers.

  Over Hahn’s head I tell Lopez, “Tonight’s the King’s first weekend on your corner; big money changing hands Friday and Saturday. Whoever’s out there will be shooters.”

  Lopez nods. Hahn inhales deep, winks, and walks toward the red Toyota. Buff hands her the money and says, “Same as before. When Hahn or Lopez says ‘Wait, we ain’t right,’ I repeat, ‘Wait, we ain’t right,’ all cars roll. Clear?”

  All of us nod.

  “Check your radios.” Buff watches till we’re done, then taps the muscular dystrophy pin he wears for luck his daughter didn’t get. “Do. Not. Hesitate. Chicago may need the Olympics, but none of Gang Team 1269 dies today.”

  FRIDAY, 10:30 PM

  Jason makes the turn onto Twenty-first Street, lip curled under his teeth. “Got a bad feeling.”

  “Imagine that.”

  “Yeah, imagine that. All of a sudden we can’t work the ghetto without chicks? And they do a double buy on day one? In the middle of a gang war? It’s like they gotta get in with us so fast that suicide’s worth it.”

  “Ate dinner with Jewboy, huh?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “He still think Jimmy Hoffa shot JFK?”

  Jason looks at me instead of the windshield. I reach for the 12-gauge, half rack the pump, then check the rest of the tube—six rounds total, lots of damage if the Latin Kings make me use it. Our car quiets into silent preparation, the personal inventory when you’re driving toward a gunfight instead of away. Five cars, ten cops, all well armed. And yet we’re the underdog. What’s that say about America? The big gangs in the ghetto districts outnumber us twelve to one and have better guns. They don’t have rules of engagement, we do. Their shooters hit the pipe to stay crazy, and fire till they run out of bullets.

  Twenty-first Street darkens.

  To break the silence I say, “If IAD has anything other than the Herald’s bullshit on Coleen Brennan and the Duprees, I gotta believe I’ll see those cards Monday morning when I’m under IAD’s lights. Whatever I hear should help us piece together where this train with the commander, Hahn, and Lopez is headed.”

  Jason’s eyes cut to me and Monday, then back to the threats directly ahead of us. “Feels wrong. Buff feels it, too; I can tell.”

  “Call in sick.”

  “Fuck you.” Jason focuses on something in the middle distance. “And fuck the commander. Her two FBI agents. And Operation Hammer.”

  “Go to the Cub game. Call in a beef; nobody has to work with strangers who fall out of the sky.”

  “But you will?” Jason frowns for real and pushes his radio at me. “Only if everybody agrees. This is stupid, but I ain’t leaving you guys short.”

  “Guess we’re going to work, then.”

  We stop in the dark two blocks west, one car alone on the war’s Friday-night front line, Jason and I sifting shadows and shapes for Latin King lookouts or La Raza gunships neither of us see. Used to be bangers didn’t murder policemen in their cars; crack changed that. The radio’s back in Jason’s lap, the girls’ voices talking to his jeans.

  Lopez: “Approaching southeast corner of Ashland an
d Twenty-first.”

  Hahn: “Four males, Hispanic, eighteen to twenty-five; T-shirts, caps, baggies. Black and gold. Pulling up.”

  Black and gold are the colors of the Latin Kings. Jason draws his 9-millimeter and slides it under his leg. We’re too far away, but as close as we can creep and not get made. “This is fucked up, Bobby. I say call it off.”

  Hahn: “Got twenty dollars, wanna holler.”

  Hispanic male: “That right?”

  Hahn: “Yeah.”

  Male: “Don’ see it.”

  Shuffle noise.

  Lopez: “Hey, man, why three guys to do—”

  ROAR OF AN AUTOMATIC.

  Jason slams the gas and me into the seat. I grab the radio, flipping the frequency: “Ten-one! Ten-one! Officer down, Ashland and Twenty-first. Gang Team 1269 on the scene.” Both feet press hard into floorboard. The radio drops, I two-hand the shotgun, and we’re airborne over the first intersection; Jason rockets the next block, makes the intersection at Ashland, and slams the brakes. Four males fire flame and roar into the Toyota’s windows and windshield.

  Jason skid-stops sideways and we’re out of the car. Two shooters have their backs to us both slamming new magazines. A third shooter catapults backward from the Toyota. The fourth turns to run, leaps into the street, and Buff’s front bumper smashes him into the pavement. I level the 12-gauge and fire twice. The nearest shooter goes down; the other turns mid-intersection, spraying us full-auto with a converted Tec-9. Bullets bang the fender. Our windshield explodes; I duck; Jason’s hit, stumbles up aiming his pistol. Our southbound car screams into the intersection. The last shooter standing spins too late and is crushed at forty miles per hour.

  I spin toward the Toyota. Hahn is standing, but crumpled over her fender. She aims her pistol down at Shooter Three pancaked on her sidewalk. Both fire. Hahn twists away, fires again, and goes down. Sirens careen in from three directions. I fan for targets in the flashing lights. Shadows. Adrenaline. Instinct. Doors pop on the arriving cars; body armor floods the intersection; ten more cops rush into our perimeter.