The Underground Detective: A Novel of Chicago Streets

by Thomas Laird

  “You don’t need to—“

  “I know you want to know, and I’m glad you care about me, Dad.”

  I can remember the silent little person I had to deal with during those years of booze, drugs and bulimia. She doesn’t sound like that young woman at all, and this time my major pump swells and rises in my chest. This has the chance to be the first happy Christmas in my recent memory. I can’t recall looking forward to the Holidays in so long that….

  In so long that there is no recollection of a happy Yuletide in my head. It’s always been just another day or two—Christmas and New Year’s. Just two days that everybody else got off and went to exotic places like Vail, Colorado, or some other resort, say, in a tropical clime. The Holidays were just notches on the calendar. They were just red Xs when I was in Vietnam. Two more days I was short, once I got past both of them on the calendar.

  I’ve always dreaded holidays of any kind. I must have looked forward to them when I was in school, but as an adult, I don’t remember getting all wound up with anticipation about them.

  “Are you going to stay at Northern, Kelly?”

  She looks over at me and smiles and nods.

  “You getting on better, lately?”

  She nods again.

  “Well?”

  “It’s not a boyfriend, but I’ve been going out with a few guys I’ve met in the dorm and in class. It’s that I’m starting to settle in, I guess. I like the teachers and I like my classes. Mostly I think it’s because Michael was why I went to this school, Dad. It really boiled down to him, and I think I depended on him to make me happy. And then when it went bad….

  “Sr. Catherine talked to me about depending upon other people for my happiness. She said I’d have to learn to live alone, for a time in my life. She told me most people can’t be happy unless their time is filled with another person’s presence, and she said that putting my happiness in someone else’s hands would make me a lifetime dependent. You know what she means?”

  I look at my daughter, and I remember the hard years we just came out of. I remember those years and the years on top of them that were spent trying to get over the loss of her mother, Mary.

  Life has not been especially kind to me, over the last ten years or so. I haven’t been crippled or killed, like a number of my brothers in arms were, and I’ve never starved or suffered privation. Maybe just those weeks of training I survived and my trigger time in the jungle in Asia. But I came out of all that in one physical piece, so I could be far worse off.

  The thing is, I can’t recall a time when I had cause to celebrate. I never knew joy, but I knew plenty of other people who did, and I felt cheated, frankly. I understand that a great many fellow human beings suffer far more than I have or ever will, but somehow that knowledge gives me no comfort.

  I suppose I’m greedy. I want to be in love and have that object of my affection love me the same way with the same, equal energy. I want my daughter to love her father the way children love their old men.

  Oh, and throw in justice, when it comes to the product of work that I do.

  “You sure you’re okay? We can look at other schools over your break. I’ll take some time and go around with you.”

  “No, Dad. I’m going to stay. I actually like it there, now.”

  We arrive at yet another red light. Franco’s is in Evergreen Park, not far from where we live.

  It’s flurrying outside, but nothing’s sticking to the ground. We haven’t had a measurable snowfall this winter, yet, but winter doesn’t officially begin for a few days.

  “You sure?”

  She nods her head and smiles. The light turns green, and I press the gas gently. I’m not really in a hurry to get anywhere. It seems like a long time since we’ve been together, but it was just Thanksgiving. We went out to a restaurant, as usual, because I have no clue how to do a turkey. And neither of us has any family, and Lila was with her own people on that day.

  “How is Lila?” Kelly asks.

  She makes me wonder if she’s a mind reader. She’s done this to me lots of times. She’ll bring up someone I’m thinking about, right at the very moment.

  “She’s back to work, but only part time until she feels full strength.”

  “She’s not your partner, anymore?”

  I look over at my tired-out kid. The crap life’s thrown at her in her nineteen years, she ought to be a little worn thin.

  “No. She’s partnered to Brian Anderson, now.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Younger than I am. In his early thirties. About Justin’s age.”

  I’ve introduced Kelly to Justin Grant, and she took to him immediately. She thinks he’s very handsome, she told me. I’m gratified to see that my daughter doesn’t have difficulty with Justin’s color. I’ve never heard Kelly talk the hate talk that they are prone to, on the streets. She was saved from that set of problems, at least. She never heard the hate talk from me, I know. I have enough problems without that shit in my repertoire.

  “You’re really sure you want to stay where you are?”

  “I want to go into medicine. After four years, I want to apply at the University of Chicago, if my grades are good enough. If they’re not, I’ll stick with nursing.”

  “Hell, you got a plan.”

  We hit another red. Maybe we’ll be eating pizza before the dawn breaks, this way.

  “I got a plan, Dad, yes,” she giggles at me.

  “You want to go to school until you’re an old lady.”

  “I’d be in my late twenties, maybe thirty.”

  “And you’d be in debt up to your fanny.”

  “I’ll try and get grants. Maybe scholarships. My dad is a single parent,” she reminds me.

  “And I’ll put my ass in hock up to my nostrils to get you through, if that’s what you really want.”

  She reaches across at me and extends her hand. I take her left with my right and give it a hard squeeze. Then we release, and Franco’s sign is lit, just ahead on the right. The snow is coming down a little harder, now.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, when I pull to a stop in the parking lot.

  “Sorry about what?”

  “All the years I wasted, hating you.”

  “I never hated you. Not once,” I tell her.

  “I know. That’s why I’m so sorry, Dad.”

  She comes across the seat and hugs me. And then she springs toward the passenger’s door and gets out into the parking lot.

  I don’t know what to get Kelly for Christmas. I usually just got her clothes that she took back to exchange for what she really wanted. This time I figure the gift has to be more special.

  Christmas morning we’re going to the eight o’clock. Then we’re headed off to one of the few eateries that’s open on Christmas. I tell her we’ll open gifts when we get back from lunch or brunch or whatever this meal will be.

  We walk out the house and find that there’s a light dusting of snow on the ground, but there’s not enough to screw up the roads. The sun is out, but it’s brisk and cold.

  She sees the Chevy Impala sitting out at the curb, but she doesn’t act surprised. Until I hold out the keys in front of me.

  There’s a question on her face.

  “Merry Christmas,” I tell her.

  “Daddy!”

  “Don’t get too excited. It’s used. But the mileage is great, and I got hooked up to the car via Auto Theft/Robbery. It’s a great deal, and like I said, low miles. It’s a nice ride, no?”

  She rushes me and gives me a crushing embrace. Tears stream down her face.

  “Now I won’t have to make all those pain in the ass rides to take you home, and now you can come home whenever you feel like it.”

  She continues the bear hug.

  “You like that shade of red?”

  It’s a cherry colored two-door, an ’84. New set of tires.

  “I love it.”

  “Good, because you’re driving.”

  29

/>   The new FBI agents look very much unlike the first two boobs we encountered, Lila and I, when we began the Twin Killer case. The older of the two is named Jeffrey Mason. He has silver and black hair, and although he must be closing in on retirement, he has icy, intelligent blue eyes that tell me he’s nobody’s fool.

  The other agent’s name is Bill Munson. He’s perhaps forty-five, but he’s just as intense-looking as his partner. Munson is semi-bald, with that wisp of hair he combs over the top of his head to make him appear as if he’s still got fur on his dome.

  The Captain has arranged this meeting for us at FBI headquarters, about a mile from CPD’s home base.

  Mason talks first after Justin and I are seated in their spacious interview room on the second floor in the Federal Building.

  “We’re involved in the investigation of hate crimes,” he tells us.

  We’re seated opposite each other—FBI on the window side and Justin and I are across from the two special agents. I’d almost think it was done intentionally, to keep the light in our eyes and at their backs, but the Captain told me to set aside our grievances against the Bureau for one day because they had some goodies for us.

  Munson remains mute, his hands folded on the table like a school kid’s.

  “You’re interested in Franklin Toliver for the so-called ‘Twin Killings.’ Right?”

  I smile and nod. I’m trying to be cooperative.

  “Toliver has been associated with the Aryan Nation for the last four years.”

  “The neo Nazis?” Justin asks.

  Both of the FBI guys’ last names begin with an “M.” I’m thinking of calling them after the famous candies with that same letter doubled up—M and Ms.

  “Yes. The Aryan Nation. Toliver is on their rolls, but we only just associated him with the guy you’re looking for.”

  “I thought you were looking for him, too,” I tell them both.

  “We are,” Munson finally joins in. “But the Area Director has made it clear we are to cooperate with the Chicago Police Department. He’s very adamant that we do so.”

  “Why the big change of heart?” I smile.

  “We don’t have the time or the inclination to address that issue,” Mason replies. He’s giving me his very best steely glare.

  “Okay. What’s going on?”

  They both look back at me.

  “We picked up information on Toliver during a phone call to the local commandant of the Aryan Nation. The commandant’s name is Larry Pickett. It seems that Pickett recruited Toliver, four years ago, and they’re very tight.”

  “And we’re hearing all this just now, but there’s nothing political going on with Franklin Toliver’s daddy? Is that what we’re supposed to swallow?” I ask Mason.

  He ignores me.

  “We have a phone number for Toliver. At least the phone he used to contact Pickett.”

  “And you didn’t race over and cuff Toliver? Why?”

  Munson clears his throat.

  “We have his apartment under surveillance. We’re trying to gather information on the hierarchy of the Aryan Nation, and we didn’t want to disturb an ongoing investigation,” he tells Justin and me.

  “In other words,” my partner says, “you don’t like Toliver as your primary, but you think he can help you develop a case against Pickett.”

  “We did. But we realize that Toliver poses too much of a threat against the public, and the murders fall under your jurisdiction,” Mason explains.

  “I think you’re both full of shit,” I tell the two FBI guys.

  Mason and Munson, the M and M twins, sit quietly, patiently.

  “I think someone has yanked your leashes and told you to hand Toliver over after all this time because somebody wants Franklin to go away and disappear and stop getting his famous last name in the papers so that daddy can make his run for governor—or maybe someone likes Raymond Toliver for VP material in the Presidential election. Could that be a possibility?

  “You boys are very fortunate that Franklin has gone dormant with regard to killing people-- as far as we know, anyway. Because if you’ve been holding back from us all these months, the way I suspect you have, your asses’ll be candidates for the deep fryer. Shame on you. Shame on all of you.”

  He slides the manila file over to Justin. Then we both rise and leave.

  We set up surveillance on the apartment from which Franklin made the call to Larry Pickett. There has been no one in or out of here for these two days in January. It’s mid-month and frigid. The only good news is that it’s been dry.

  Kelly’s back at second semester classes. My dog Sonny is chewing the shit out of anything he can get his teeth on because his one-year choppers are coming in, and he’s become a major pain in the ass, so I’ve had to keep him in a metal kennel when he’s indoors and I’m not home. Otherwise it’s like termites going through the furniture and the curtains. The vet says it’ll halt once the teeth really come in. But I had to lock him up in that kennel, and it damn near breaks my heart to see him cooped up that way. I keep telling myself it’s just temporary.

  Lila is the veritable passing ship in my life at Headquarters. I see her in the halls infrequently, and since she doesn’t call me at all, I don’t phone her, either. I can’t remember when I ever had a love life, after high school.

  The apartment building is on the far southwest side, just barely within city boundaries. It’s fortunate, because otherwise we’d have to be sharing the detail with a number of other agencies and police forces. This is our territory, however, and we’re handling it. And this time there’s somebody here all three shifts and every day. Apparently our honchos downtown have decided we’ve fucked with Franklin long enough.

  Justin and I are on third shift. I don’t mind midnights now that Kelly is out of the house, but I never liked being out on the street at night when she was home alone. Sonny can take care of himself, but there is no really secure neighborhood in Chicago. Bad things happened in Old Town and on the Gold Coast. Those two hoods are as diverse as you can get, but people got whacked in both locations. There really is no safe haven in this world, let alone in this city. Point your finger in any direction, and evil lives there.

  I sleep every chance I get when I have to watch a site. Justin’s on and I’m off. That way we both get a chance to be alert when something happens. We both try to gut it out at the same time, we both get tired, and when you’re fatigued, you make mistakes. Vince Lombardi said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” The Rangers lived by those words, and that was why we never got more than three or four hours sleep at any one time, because if you learn to combat weariness, you learn how to handle guerilla warfare. There are no hours, in combat. You have to react when you’d rather be crapped out, and you have to learn, also, how to not give in to absolute fatigue.

  It’s three forty-two A.M. We’re the only car parked in front of 12347 South Westmore. The apartment is part of a three flat. These residences are very old but very well kept up. This is one of the few all-white neighborhoods left on the southwest side. Hoods are either well integrated or black, in this vicinity. These few square blocks are the exception.

  At three fifty-six, a car pulls up and parks about fifty feet in front of us. Justin nudges me, but I’m not asleep anyway. Sometimes I can’t conk, even though I keep my eyes shut.

  Justin slumps down behind the wheel.

  I have my eyes just over the dashboard, and I see it’s a dark sedan, but I can’t see the make or the plates. When the driver gets out, we both see he’s the right height and the right build. He’s not wearing a hood, but it’s too dark to see what color his hair is. It is only apparent that he’s a white male and that the body size fits our bill.

  When he heads right toward the apartment building we’re watching, Justin calls for backup. He tells them it’s a priority and to haul ass here.

  Then we get up and slowly and quietly get out of the unmarked ride. We don’t shut the doors because he’s not inside the entry
yet.

  When we get to the door, he’s already inside and on his way up. The top apartment on floor three is where Toliver made the call.

  The second entry inside the outer door is locked. I have a pick with me.

  “Highly illegal,” Justin says with a smirk.

  “Yes. It certainly is. Want to wait for backup and a battering ram?”

  He shakes his head.

  “So,” I say, and I proceed to insert the needle nose of the pick. I have it opened in less than a minute.

  “It was still opened when we arrived, right?” I look at my partner.

  “How many years for B and E?” he asks, deadpan.

  We walk softly and slowly up the three flights of steps. There is carpeting on the stairs, so our footfalls are muffled. I don’t hear any screeching of tires outside, so I figure we can’t wait. We’ve waited long enough on this guy. It’s time to meet Franklin Toliver face to face.

  So I kick open the heavy wooden door with a well-practiced heel that has blown open other entries many times before. The blow from my foot sends the door inward with a boom. And when we rush through the portal, I see the gun.

  I have my .38 raised as I enter the apartment, and Justin is one stride behind me. I see the orange flame spit at us both as I step inside, and I feel my own hand rise as if by itself, and then I’ve loosed two rounds right at the source of the orange blast, and now I hear a scream from in front of me, and then I hear a thump on the floor.

  Only three shots have rung out—two were mine. Justin never got off a shot that I heard. I see a body slumped before me. He’s not moving, and it’s so dark in here I can’t see his face.

  “Justin?” I say as I turn back toward the doorway.

  Justin doesn’t answer because he’s sprawled back out onto the landing.

  The suspect’s name is Marvin Gillespie. He’s a member of the Aryan Nation, also. The apartment was being shared by Gillespie and Toliver, but the man I shot won’t be talking for a few hours, at least. I caught him in the chest and in the face, but he’s expected to live.