Maria and I look at one another and draw our guns.
“I don’t know who—” the mayor begins to say, but he’s cut off by an explosion so great I wonder if the front of the house is still there. The foundations seem to shake. The roof creaks above us. It feels like the house just jumped a foot and then resettled.
Maria’s cousin comes barreling through the bedroom door, gun in hand. The left side of his face is full of tiny cuts. He is covered in the fine white dust of exploded drywall. The air behind him is swimming with thick gray particles.
“A bunch of guys with guns” he says, spitting the dust from his lips. “Oh, Jesus. They just threw a fucking grenade at the front of the house.”
“Is it the alderman’s goon squad?” Ben asks me. “Could they be here already?”
“It has to be,” I say. “Looters wouldn’t attack a fortified home.”
“We should have been quicker!” Ben says. “Dammit!”
“Mom and Yuliana are still in the basement!” Maria shouts in alarm.
No sooner are the words out of her mouth than a woman of about fifty and a scared-looking teenager come barreling through the doorway.
“Get in here!” Maria shouts.
The two women run inside the room. For a moment they regard the half-dressed mayor—he smiles at them awkwardly— and then fall on Maria, embracing. They cling to her. Maria seems pleased by this. She stares over at her father and smiles contemptuously.
“My friends!” Franco cries. “They all got exploded out there. Jesus.”
“Where is Pastor Rivers?” I ask seriously. Franco just shakes his head.
“They came up out of nowhere. They looked like they wanted to start some trouble. They pulled out guns, and so we started shooting at them—just warning shots, you know? And then one of them threw a grenade.”
“I heard Shawn Michael Recinto say they wanted to make it look like a random killing—not even leave shell casings,” Maria says from the corner of her mouth. “I guess that plan’s out the window.”
“We shouldn’t be huddled in this room,” I announce. “We need to spread out and defend ourselves. They’re out there wondering if that grenade got us all. Pretty soon, they’ll get brave and come find out.”
I can hardly believe what’s happening. Marja Mogk’s troops have caught up to us. I’d thought we had hours on them. Instead, they have almost kept pace. They’ve found their way through the rubble and barricaded neighborhoods of Chicago, and now they are here to kill the mayor.
But I haven’t come this far to give the mayor up without a fight, even if he is a corrupt sad sack who takes his damn time putting on his pants. He’s bad, no doubt there.but there are worse elements. Worse elements who will take over this city.unless we do something.
Like fight back.
I open the bedroom door. The dust is settling, and the corridor beyond is clear. I gaze up to the front of the house. It hasn’t exactly “exploded,” but the damage is severe. The windows have been blasted out of the front kitchen area, and there are softball-sized holes in the wall. My gun at the ready, I creep down the hallway. Through the broken windows, I see a couple of furtive young men outside taking cover behind trees and cars. At least I think they are young and men. Their sexes, ages, and other defining features are almost completely obscured by winterwear.
Around the kitchen, I encounter the remains of Franco’s friends. Moments before, we had been drinking coffee and telling our story to these men. Now they are lying in pieces. Near the oven, a bloody torso presents itself like a roast waiting to be cooked. I step over it as respectfully as I can.
I move to the front staircase where I encounter the body of Pastor Rivers. His giant, genial bulk has been blasted against a side pantry. Now he lies like a beached walrus, large and unmoving on the floor, with part of his spine protruding through the back of his turtleneck. The position of his body makes it clear that there is no way he can still be alive.
I lean forward and hazard glances through the broken front windows. Our attackers have assumed defensive positions.
The men—and they are men, I now realize—are beginning to spread out. I can see two huddled behind a yellow car directly across the street. They keep looking around to the side of the house though. We are being flanked.
“Maria, Ben,” I call back down the hallway. “South side of the house. Get on it, now!”
My compatriots leave the back bedroom, keeping low. Remembering that Ben is unarmed, I indicate a weapon next to one of Franco’s exploded friends. Ignoring the gore that encases it, Ben bravely picks up a bloodslick automatic.
Ben and Maria skulk to a side window near the den. Maria carefully peeks through the blinds. A moment later, she gingerly takes aim.
Ka-pow! Ka-pow! Maria fires twice.
“Winged him!” she calls.
Moments later I see one of the thugs hobbling back to the front of the yard. He has been shot through the calf and blood is turning one of his white tennis shoes bright red. More of these men could be creeping in from any direction. We need to get a better view.
“Ben” I call. “Take your gun and go upstairs. See what you can see from the windows up there.”
Ben looks warily at the blasted front wall—from where, it feels, we are most vulnerable to another attack—and runs past me up the stairs.
Back on the lawn, I watch the wounded man limp until he is behind the dingy yellow car with the others. A shape moves out from behind it to receive him. It is a large man with his nose padded in gauze and crudely bandaged with medical tape. Shawn Michael Recinto.
He made it after all.
Shawn Michael frowns at his colleague, showing no concern for the wounded man, only annoyance that he has failed at his infiltration. (What had the man hoped to do? Lob in another grenade? Set the side of the house on fire? I suppose both of those might have worked.)
At least we know that this group has a leader. And if the group can be reasoned with—which I’m not sure it can—then he will be the conduit.
I creep to the edge of the shrapnel-riddled front wall. Trying to keep out of the gangsters’ line of sight, I crouch down beneath a glassless window.
“Shawn Michael!” I call loudly. “We’ve got to talk about this, young man.”
For a moment there is silence. Then I hear the sound of a gun being cocked.
“I don’t know what you think you’re up to...” I call to him. “But one...you can’t do it. We won’t let you. And two...you don’t need to do it.”
At this, I risk a peek around the blasted window frame. There is no visible reaction from the men. Shawn Michael does not show himself. I dip back into cover.
“Fact is, a lot of people already know,” I continue, trying to project so he can hear me. (I have been spoiled, lately, by the microphone system in my pulpit.) “We’ve spread the word around, son. Told half the city! When this all settles down, everybody’s gonna know what Marja Mogk did. Everybody’ll know she’s a murderer, and murderers can’t be mayor, even in Chicago. Unless—that is—you don’t do this. If you walk away now, people will say they must have heard wrong. That Pastor Mack is a liar. If Marja were here, she’d tell you to walk away. You know I’m right, son.”
There is a powerful silence. I look over at the remains of Franco’s exploded friends, then over at Pastor Rivers, and utter a silent prayer. Please let me reach him. Please, God. No more killing.
Silence.
I wonder if Shawn Michael is formulating a response. Maybe he has elected not to speak with us at all. Maybe he can’t even hear me.
I hazard another glance out front. Our attackers remain hidden. I detect movement, however, in the far yard across the street behind Shawn Michael. I rub my eyes and squint. It’s...a ragged pair of zombies. The corpses of homeless addicts, it looks like. They parade confidently, like high noon in a Western, hands on their hips. Shawn Michael and his men are bound to notice them soon and to make short work of them. A distraction, but not a threa
t.
Shawn Michael’s voice comes back across the lawn.
“I know you,” he says. “You broke my nose.”
“And I know you” I return quickly. “I’ve seen you with Marja. You’re always by her side. Big man on the scene. I’m me; you’re you. Who we are is no secret. Neither is what we do. If your men back away now, maybe this was all just a misunderstanding. If you don’t, people are gonna know.”
I pray that my words will reach Shawn Michael.
Come on, dammit. See reason.
“Nothing to do about it,” Shawn Michael says. “We both know I got my orders.” I sigh in defeat.
Shawn Michael is right. He has his orders.
That’s the problem with Chicago-style politics. It doesn’t encourage thinking. You can be somebody who’s not paid to think and still rise very high in the ranks. Actually, the less you think, maybe the faster you can count on rising. Shawn Michael is not his own person, really. He’s just Marja Mogk’s arm. A big, muscled arm that threatens to knock people down whenever they disagree with her.
By telling me he has his orders, he is reminding me that he is an arm. Not a brain. Not a heart. Not any other thinking or feeling apparatus. An arm. There will be no getting through to him.
The young men in South Shore who I counsel about the dangers of gang life are this way. (Hell, I was this way forty-some years ago, when I had a habit to support.) Shawn Michael has turned off the aspect of his brain that registers that other humans also have feelings. You got to turn off that part of your brain to do a crime. To hurt somebody. Otherwise, you won’t do it. But some people—once they turn it off—can never turn it back on again. Their switch is broken. Stuck on “off” forever.
I have no chance of convincing Shawn Michael not to kill us. I never did.
There is a clamor behind me at the stop of the stairs.
“Mack,” Ben calls down. “I can see all of them from up here. There are three out front behind a yellow car. And there’s also one to the north with a rifle, hiding on the neighbor’s back deck. Four total”
“That’s counting Shawn Michael?” “Yeah,” Ben confirms. “Four total.”
At the back of the house, Maria’s cousin Franco creeps forward out of the bedroom. He has wiped the blood away from his face, but his cheek looks pretty torn up. He holds a handgun low and at the ready. He gives me a nod, signaling that he is prepared to fight with us.
Looks like it’s four against four, and one on each side is already wounded. A fair fight.
Back outside, Shawn Michael is risking a glance out from the side of the car. Can he also tell that it’s four against four? (I once read that in medieval battles, the attackers who come to sack a castle should always outnumber the defenders two to one. Maybe Shawn Michael has some sense of this notion and understands he lacks the power to overwhelm us.) I can still see the soullessness in his eyes: a stare more lifeless and hollow than that of the two zombies who approach behind him.
I have an idea.
“Come here,” I whisper to Maria and Franco. “Ben, you too.”
I motion for Ben to come down to the foot of the staircase. He quickly descends.
“Here’s what we do. There are two zombies in that far yard, and they’ve noticed Shawn Michael. Pretty soon, Shawn Michael and his people will have to deal with them. It won’t be much, but they’ll have to turn around to kill the zombies. Shoot until they hit the brain. The moment his group does that, I want Ben to start shooting from upstairs. Worst case, they’ll get pinned for a while. Best case, you pick a couple off.”
“Aim for Shawn Michael,” Maria says stoically. “Once we hear you shooting, the rest of us will go after the lone wolf to the north on the neighbor’s deck,” I say. “What, charge him?” Franco asks.
I had actually been anticipating doing that very thing—making a break across the lawn and presenting him with too many targets to shoot. The tone in Franco’s voice tells me he believes this would be a bad idea. I realize I may not be thinking clearly. Exhaustion has taken its toll. I try to shake it off.
“I want to use our three-to-one advantage while we have it,” I say, staying general about the specifics of my plan.
“Can we go out the back and try to flank him?” Maria offers.
“No,” Franco answers seriously. “He can see the back door from that deck. I think that’s why he’s there—to shoot us in case we try to sneak out the rear.”
I look down the hallway into the bedroom, wishing for more help. I see the mayor sitting on the corner of the bed, his head in his hands. He sways back and forth like a top spinning on a table, ready to topple at any moment. Maria’s mother and sister look on. Maria’s mother tentatively puts a consoling hand on the mayor’s shoulder. Somehow, she can bring herself to comfort a man who—from what I can gather—has betrayed her many, many times.
The sight fills me with a red-hot rage. This is the man who agreed to lead our city, and he has dissolved into a whimpering, simpering nothing. What’s wrong with us as citizens? How were we ever “okay” with this arrangement? I can’t get mad at the mayor for being a coward. Some people are just born cowards. But I’m furious with the people of this city for putting a bunch of cowards in charge. For thinking that was fine.
I look at this blubbering mayor and decide he is an example from God. He is here at this moment to show me what not to do. (In Chicago, if you want to do the morally correct thing, think to yourself “What would the mayor do?” Then do the opposite.)
“I’ll charge the guy on the deck,” I tell the assemblage at the foot of the stairs.
“What?” Maria protests. “You can’t. Your hip is hurt.”
“Yeah, and it’s too dangerous,” Franco adds.
“I’ve got more combat training than anyone here,” I tell them. “I know how to move under cover and how to shoot to kill. When the group out front is pinned by Ben and the zombies, I want you two to start shooting out the northside widow at the guy on the deck. Keep him in cover. Then, I’ll go out the front door, around the side of the house, and take out his position. We get him, and suddenly it’s four-against-three, and we have the advantage. No objections. Just do what I say. This is the plan. Trust me.”
Maria Ramirez
I take position next to Franco under a first-floor window on the north side of the house. Ben goes back upstairs. Mack crawls next to the front door where he prepares to make a break for it.
“How you doing?” I ask Franco as we huddle underneath the windowsill.
“Ehh, you know...” he says.
“We’re gonna have some fucking good stories at the next family reunion.”
Franco smiles weakly.
It’s in my nature to be flip, but I’m not really feeling it. Mostly, I’m worried about providing cover for Mack. I can’t even see the shooter on the deck. We’re just taking Ben’s word that he’s there. I hazard a couple of glances outside and contemplate the best way to lay down fire.
Sooner than seems possible, Ben’s gun thunders down from the second floor of the house. Ka-pow! Ka-pow! Ka-pow!
Mack draws his Glock. He gives Franco and me a nod and then slips out the front door.
My cousin and I rise from our crouches and look out the north-facing window. At first we see nothing. No target. Then he shoots, and we glimpse the unmissable muzzle flash by the side of the deck. It’s not clear if he has a target or is just shooting to shoot, but we duck instinctively. He’s probably spraying and praying. We start to return fire, really opening up on him. Splinters fly as our guns begin to eat up the deck and the wooden railing around it.
Upstairs, Ben continues to shoot intermittently. I can hear what might be the gangsters out front firing too, but there are now enough people shooting that it’s difficult to tell. (It’s all very wordless and weird. Close your eyes, and we could be a bunch of people at a shooting range.)
I squeeze off a few more shots before Mack comes into view. He has edged around the side of the house and is
moving fast and low as he closes in on the shooter.
I start to feel sick as adrenaline surges through my body once more. Usually adrenaline takes away the pain, but I’ve been asking a lot from myself over the last ten hours. This puts me near overload. A feeling of wrongness courses through my veins. It’s like drinking an espresso when you’ve already had two pots of coffee or doing whiskey shots on top of a raging hangover. More adrenaline is the last thing my body wants. My gun bucks in my hand. Each time it does, I feel a little more sick and stretched thin.
Mack takes cover next to a hedge just inside Franco’s property line. The twists of branches and bramble will not stop a rifle bullet, but he is concealed. Next, he begins to crawl away from the shooter on his elbows. At first I think he’s just orienting himself; it would make more sense to crawl west and get closer. I realize Mack must be aware of this. He’s making the counterintuitive move. He’s going to go down the hedge a ways then pop up. He’ll have to pick off the shooter at an angle, but his target will never see it coming.
Suddenly, there is a furtive movement atop the deck. I see the barrel and stock of a rifle bobbing as the shooter changes position.
Uh oh.
Then, before I can act—or think—a white flash comes from the muzzle. Mack crumples to the ground.
Franco and I open up on the shooter, who knows he’s been spotted. He stands up and tries to run—the worst thing he could possibly do. One of us hits him square in the back. He slumps over, dead.
“Mack!” I cry.
He isn’t dead, but he isn’t moving much either. He balls up and turns on his side, like a sleeping dog. My God, I hope he’s only been winged. (Though in a world where the hospitals probably aren’t operating anymore, the implications of a flesh wound are increasingly dire.)
Then disaster strikes.
I’m preparing to leap out of the window and onto the lawn, when a giant shape looms behind Franco. In my peripheral vision, it only registers as movement. Very large movement. I pivot to take a proper look, and something hits the side of my head and sends me reeling to the floor. Then Franco starts screaming.
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