Start Shooting

by Charlie Newton

  Moens says, “I mentioned him, didn’t accuse him. Yet.”

  I drill straight into Miss Bottom-feeder. “Meaning what?”

  She blinks, or maybe bats, the green eyes. “We go to court with his lawyer tomorrow. James Barlow. Know him?”

  James Barlow is dangerous money, old First Ward kind of money. He brings clients to Hugo’s for lunch, tips well, and always sits in the back corner. Bobby Vargas is a cop/weekend guitar player; they don’t have big dangerous money, or shouldn’t.

  Tracy hugs her knees. “Love to know who’s paying. Barlow’s not known for pro bono.”

  “I’d stay and referee,” says Julie, “but I have to count money downstairs. Been a long day for this saloonkeeper.”

  I point at my watch. “Seven o’clock, okay? Not a minute later.”

  Julie kisses me on the cheek. “Just like a hotel.” Then she kisses Tracy. “Be nice, both of you have reputations to protect, sort of.”

  Julie closes the door behind her. Tracy says, “Where’s the gun?”

  “Sorry. Grips are all I have.”

  “Whose prints are we matching?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “But you know why …”

  I feed her the lie I practiced. “I need a favor. Do it and I won’t block the exhumation of my sister—you’re the neighborhood monster for soliciting exhumation, but I’ll get out of the way.”

  “I’m a reporter.” Pause. “Julie said someone shot at you.”

  “Julie’s drunk after a big day and a bigger night.”

  “Someone didn’t shoot at you?”

  Hard frown. “Match the prints, give the grips back to me, then I’ll talk to you.”

  Tracy fingers at the pistol grips encased in the baggie Julie provided. “Robbie Steffen?” She looks up. “He comes in Hugo’s, doesn’t he?”

  Nod.

  “Isn’t his father, Toddy Pete, one of the backers for Streetcar? Where I dropped you this afternoon?”

  She probably called the director, her friend Anne Johns. “You know he is.”

  “Small world. All of us, six degrees of separation. The Vargas brothers, the Steffens, you and I …”

  “What’d you tell the director?”

  “Anne Johns? Nothing. And I wouldn’t say anything, not if it hurt your chances. I’d be happy to do the opposite, if you thought it would help.”

  I glance her toward the pistol grips on the bed. “I have to sleep, my audition’s at eleven.”

  Tracy picks up my script, not the pistol grips, and muses. “A long journey to here, finally.” The room goes silent and stays silent. Tracy fingers the script. “The Shubert might prefer a lead actress without serious … problems.”

  Belfast creeps into my voice. “That they might.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We cut the crap and you decide.”

  “Had I known about you and Streetcar, I would’ve waited a week to break the story.” Shrug. “But I didn’t know, I had the new information about the Twenty-Treys and …” She looks up from my script for a reaction.

  I know all about the Twenty-Trey Gangsters, about the Irish cop Terry Rourke who killed a nine-year-old Mexican kid and the street war it started. I was there. And that’s right where Moens goes.

  “Terry Rourke was related to your mother, wasn’t he?”

  No one outside our family has ever said that before. People whispered—not because they knew—just because people whisper. “Terry Rourke was my ma’s brother. They didn’t speak.”

  “Because of the …”

  “Because Officer Terry Rourke raped my ma the week she and the family came over from Belfast. My ma was eleven; he was twenty something, already a cop, had helped bring them over.”

  “And your father knew.”

  “No.” Long exhale. “That one you have wrong. Had my da known he wouldn’t have married my ma. Had he found out after they were married, Da would’ve killed Terry Rourke long before the Twenty-Treys did.”

  “But the police in the Four Corners knew. And didn’t prosecute.”

  “You’re Irish; our families bury things like that. Had Ma told after she was married, she’d have been raising two daughters without a husband. Da kills Terry, then Da’s either shot dead by Terry’s fellow policemen or put in Joliet and executed.”

  “Could your mother have … She knew the Twenty-Treys from the neighborhood. Knew they were gunning for Terry. She knew her brother’s address. She could’ve …”

  Through my teeth I tell the bedspread, “I asked you for a favor. I agreed to get out of your way if you do it. Period.”

  Moens waits, then gathers her things to leave. She picks up the baggie with the pistol grips. “Could take all night, if I can get it done at all. Next time we talk—if I have your answers—you’ll have to have mine. Sorry, but that’s how it works.”

  I don’t respond and don’t raise my eyes until the door shuts behind her. I go to the door, lock it tight, and throw the bolt. Something nags me, something Moens said that didn’t fit. Or was it something she did? Like help me. Help me because … Julie and I are friends? Because Moens wants Coleen’s body exhumed? Because Moens knows about the diary she couldn’t know about? Because underneath all that feral beauty Tracy Moens has a heart of gold?

  Face rub. I’m missing something that’s right in front of me.

  Recap: The Dupree family wants Coleen’s body exhumed. Tracy Moens doesn’t have a heart of gold. She has her exposé story ready to go if the court will let her print it.

  Then why all the questions? Why does she need answers?

  What if she doesn’t have her story ready to go? What if the Herald is about to go under like the rumors say? Tracy said an injunction has temporarily stopped them from publishing her exposé—but injunctions are very hard to get against a major city newspaper. What if her exposé is a stunt, a desperate gamble—Moens starts a fire just before the Dupree depositions start, then watches how and where the suspects run. The courts “stop” her from publishing the ending … an ending she hasn’t written yet.

  Because she doesn’t have an ending.

  Jolt. Then what does Moens have?

  Coleen whispers, “Go to sleep; figure Tracy Moens tomorrow; fight Ruben tomorrow.”

  I smile. Say, “Aye, a stór,” and slide the 9-millimeter from the back of my jeans, stuff it under Julie’s pillow, and curl up with my script hugged to my chest, wrapping Tennessee Williams and Blanche DuBois in the best embrace I can give. Us against the world: me, Coleen, Tennessee, and Blanche. And a plan that will work. Ridiculous schoolgirl smile. And maybe Bobby.

  I’d cook us all muffins if I could, but Coleen’s right, we have to sleep. Somewhere between exhaustion, survival, and stage fright I have to sleep. Tomorrow is my day; Coleen’s day. I survived the Four Corners and Venice Beach and L.A. and Santa Monica for a reason. Today is over—thirty-one hours of Byzantine, Machiavellian hell. We have a plan; control. Tomorrow is my day. Coleen and Arleen’s day. Tears bubble, then run down my cheeks.

  I hug Streetcar tighter. Please, God, if you’re out there, forgive me for just twenty-four hours and give me my chance. I will stand up there fearless and pour out Blanche DuBois, I swear I will. I’ll be the best actress they’ve ever seen. Let them pick me—one time, God—pick one of the Brennan sisters for something other than penance.

  OFFICER BOBBY VARGAS

  SUNDAY, 2:30 AM

  Chicago at the witching hour. Agent Hahn behind the wheel, driving me toward the crossroads to sell my soul. Robert Johnson did it; shook hands with the devil and learned to play the guitar like no one had before. Robert died at twenty-seven, howling on his hands and knees.

  Neon dreams flash the passenger window. In a matter of minutes Chicago’s River North will feel very different. After the throbbing, vibrant nightlife has finished and the revelers sent home, the city goes into a kind of shock for an hour. Block by block these bars and diners close, the hum of their a/c quits, and the neons
blink out, the colorful splashes replaced by gray and steamy July heat. During this hour the streets quickly lose their possibilities; silent shadows rise, the alley air sours, and the playground becomes nocturnal. Every night on the job we watch it happen, and wait with our handguns and handcuffs, cups of coffee and gallows humor. Humor helps because this next hour—not night, not morning—is when the really strange shit happens. Robert Cray’s “Night Patrol.”

  Hahn’s Pontiac feels dirty, like germs you can’t see, like infections that start small and take you over. She’ll have me do Robbie Steffen first, then take what he says and go after Buff. Then who knows, I’ll have sold my soul to Agent Hahn, I should be capable of anything. Won’t be a cop anymore, that’s for sure.

  Maybe that’s what happened to Robbie. Maybe Buff saw stuff in Vietnam that thirty-plus years of ghetto failure finally convinced him to take money. Shit happens, stars align—Furukawa’s Dr. Ota hits the front page with the Olympic rebid, White Flower Lý digs out her vials of plague, enlists Buff from the good old days, and bingo, they’re all there with the devil at the crossroads.

  But why drag Bobby Vargas into it? I’ve been on the good-guy side of the witching hour all my life. I don’t harm children; I don’t cruise for kid prostitutes pimped from doorways or troll for the runaways finding each other like magnets, grouping up for safety in the alleys nobody will want till the sun comes up. I don’t roll drunks or mug girls who parked brave.

  I was a good guy. Arleen needs to know that; I deserve one last little victory before I tape on the wire. I’m me, not the Bobby Vargas who puts his hands down little kids’ pants.

  I dial instead of text. Arleen answers a sleepy “Hello?”

  “Hi. It’s Bobby … Vargas, I—”

  Dreamy, sorta Southern “Hi,” warm and soft.

  “Sorry to call so late.”

  Sleepy, like she’s hugging her pillow. “That’s okay. I’m glad.”

  “I just wanted you to know, you know, ah, it was great seeing you today. Better than great. Been thinking about you all day.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. Feels good, Bobby, so good I don’t know what to say.”

  I smile into my window. “Good luck, you know, at the theater.” Pause. “And, ah, don’t believe anything you hear about me, okay? I’m chasing bad people who are trying to put me together. It’s a cop thing, but it isn’t true.”

  Silence, then: “I know Bobby Vargas; I told you, heart to heart.” Muffled sounds of sheets I wish I was under. “You’re not the only one in trouble.” Her voice strengthens. “After the Shubert, win or lose, maybe we could sit down … like before when it was just us.”

  “I’m in. Promise not to believe what you hear.”

  “After the Shubert, then.”

  “Remember, the stuff they’ll say or print isn’t true.”

  “I already know that.” A breathy “Bye,” and Arleen hangs up.

  I sit back in the Pontiac’s seat and feel the smile. Somebody important trusts me. Someone who sounds like Anita Baker on a happy day, smells like Sunday-morning cinnamon rolls, and vibes so good you think about her instead of the crossroads you’re approaching.

  Hahn says, “Ground control to Bobby.”

  My smile dies. “Your deal with Robert Johnson didn’t work out too well for Robert.”

  She nods. “Always better someone else braves-up and does the work for you.”

  “Robert wasn’t enough? Gotta get me, too?”

  “Hero time, Bobby. Time to walk it like you big bad Chicago cops talk it.”

  Face rub, eyes shut, exhale into my hands. Sure, I remember Bobby Vargas, the rat, that spic Mexican who gave up his team. Candy-ass motherfucker.

  “No wire. And I’m no hero. Tell me what you want from Steffen and I’ll go get it.”

  SUNDAY, 4:15 AM

  Mercy Hospital is drab faded cubes stacked in the elbow of two rumbling eight-lane highways. Not the best neighborhood, but now advertised as walkable from Chinatown since the State Street projects were torn down or converted to “apartments.” Bad, dangerous motherfuckers don’t live in “apartments.”

  Hahn eyes me, sensing I may fold. She removes a handful of change from her pocket that she drops on the console between us. The fingers of her right hand line up the coins while she talks. “In Europe, before they had mega-dense populations centers like we do here, a strain of the plague less potent than the Unit 731 strain killed seventy-five million people, every third person on the European continent. Fleas, same as Dr. Ota tested in rural China, brought the germs from Asia by accident on wooden ships. Since then, the plague has been weaponized—first by Dr. Ota in World War II, then by us, then by the Russians.

  “The ‘modern’ plague includes a highly effective airborne dispersal system, as witnessed by Dr. Bill Patrick in 1968 upwind of the Johnston Atoll one thousand miles southwest of Hawaii. At the time, Dr. Patrick was a top biological combat scientist attached to the U.S. Army at Fort Detrick. While Patrick watched, a U.S. Marine Phantom jet overflew a series of barges loaded with hundreds of caged rhesus monkeys. Patrick says the laydown killed half.”

  Hahn organizes her coins into stacks. “He concluded that a similar jet doing a modest laydown over Los Angeles would produce the death rate of a ten-megaton hydrogen bomb. Dr. Patrick said that forty years ago. Lotta scientific water under the bridge since then.”

  Hahn’s fingers move the coin stacks together. “Downtown Chicago, twice the size of what L.A. was then.”

  My eyes drift to our skyscraper skyline. Two days ago I was fine. I turn to her. “Are you making a Roger Corman movie?”

  “And your sergeant, Buff Anderson, helped White Flower Lý bring it here. And at least one of your fellow cops is threatening to use it.” Hahn extends an envelope with “731” handwritten in the upper left corner—my credentials “proving” I’m a player, an unknown silent partner—and drops the envelope in my lap. She says, “Robbie Steffen is our first answer. Anything we can get from him is worth the risk.”

  Stare. “Assuming you’re not full of shit. Assuming I like trapping policemen.”

  Her voice hardens. “Somebody, probably one of his partners, tried to kill Robbie thirteen hours ago. He’ll think you were part of it so you better be convincing … or he kills you. Or worse, his blackmail crew, or Furukawa, make a mistake and we have to get biblical to clean it up.”

  Robbie Steffen has a private room adjacent to ICU but not in it. The guards on his door are uniformed Chicago cops; one I know. The uniform I don’t know jumps up, pointing me back down the hall. “Nah, nah; get the fuck outta here.”

  “Robbie wants to see me.”

  The cop shoves me backward. “Ain’t no little kids in there.”

  “Fuck you.” I shove back. “You don’t know shit.”

  “I know you’re a spic, fucking greaser we shouldn’t have let in our country in the first place.” He shoves again.

  I knock his hand away, pivot, and half trip. “You’re positive, huh? ’Cause I’m not an American? Or ’cause you’ve seen the evidence they don’t have?” I spit in his face.

  The cop I know jumps between us—Steve, Rita, and I played his wedding last year at Park West. We both stumble to the hallway wall, his face in mine. “Easy. Bobby, you must want to go to prison. We have to write down everyone who comes up here.”

  Behind him, his partner wipes at his face. “Spic motherfucker. Let him go, Dave. I’ll kick his ass to Mexico.”

  “Yeah, Dave. Let me go.”

  “Stop talking, turn around, and somehow I didn’t see you.”

  We dance, but no closer to Dave’s partner. “Can’t do it. Here to see your patient.”

  Dave keeps his hands up between me and his partner and barks back over his shoulder. “Pauly, calm the fuck down. Get on the door.” Dave turns back to me. “Cool?”

  I nod, glaring at Dave’s partner glaring back. Dave pulls out his notebook. “What’s your
badge number?”

  I tell him. Dave stays between me, his partner, and the door to Robbie Steffen.

  “Can’t just go in. Steffen’s bodyguards have to agree. And it’s four thirty in the morning, in case your watch is broken.”

  “Steffen wants to see me.”

  Dave stays with me, then tells his partner to find out. Dave’s partner taps the door five times. A voice asks him something and he steps inside. Thirty seconds pass. The partner returns with a serious fellow in a black suit and a wire in his ear. Toddy Pete’s bodyguard at the Levee Grill could’ve been this guy or his twin. The suit eyes me carefully; he probably heard the commotion. “May I see an ID?”

  I show my wallet, sans badge, and tell him I’m on suspension. He nods, then backs up into Robbie’s room. A minute passes. The suit returns. Politely, he says he’ll have to frisk me. He’s thorough, professional, and dead serious in his movements. My cell phone is in his hand when it rings. He pops it, decides it’s okay, and hands it to me still ringing.

  Tania Hahn says, “When you hear your brother’s name, act like Ruben sent you.”

  “What?”

  “Ruben sent you.”

  Hahn clicks off. The black suit says something. I stare at my phone. Ruben sent me?

  The suit says, “Understand?”

  “Huh?”

  “In the room, don’t step past me. Any move forward and I’ll respond at full capacity.” The suit doesn’t seem to care that I’m a child molester. “Are we clear?”

  “Right. No problem.”

  The suit backs through the door and motions me to follow. Behind him, Robbie is in his bed bent thirty degrees to sitting. A second guard steps out behind me after I pass the bathroom; I’m now sandwiched, speaking to Robbie over the first bodyguard’s shoulder.

  Bandages crisscross Robbie Steffen’s chest; his right hand grips a Glock automatic. With difficulty he says, “If you intend leaving Mercy’s parking lot alive, this better be the best story I ever heard.”

  Ruben sent me?

  I ease out Hahn’s Unit 731 envelope and let Robbie see it. He has the bodyguard facing me read the inscription, then tells me to drop the envelope on the foot of the bed. Robbie pushes himself up under the sheets, Glock tight in his hand, eyes the envelope and says: “I’m listening.”