Hog Butcher: 2nd Edition

by Andrew Sutherland

  Al paid for his large coffee and went out into the cold morning air. He was heading to his Tai Chi spot, following a routine he’d had since arriving in Chicago. He’d leave the Double Tree and head north on Fairbanks St. (the Double Tree was less than a block away from that fabulous watering hole and Chicago institution, Timothy O’Toole’s), walk a block and a half until he got to Java Towne Roasters, and duck in for his large black coffee. The north/south blocks were short. The blocks were longer going east and west.

  Java Towne Roasters had a different house roast every morning. They actually rotated their roasts in three big urns. One was the decaf. The decaf wandered from light roasts to dark roasts and even had a flavored coffee on some days. Al never drank decaf, so he paid little attention to this urn. There was a second urn for flavored coffees. Al eschewed these concoctions, as well. He liked coffee that tasted like coffee. He didn’t want hazelnut crème, raspberry chocolate, or Irish cream. He was interested in urn number three, the caffeinated brew of the day. These cruised all over the spectrum, from light to dark, and used all sorts of different kinds of beans and blends. Urn three was a coffee adventure that never ceased to entertain Al’s taste buds and elevate his mood.

  He’d left the Double Tree slightly after Edith. He’d expected her to be weird this morning after she opened up to him more than she had anticipated on the previous night. He thought showing that vulnerability might make her get shy this morning, but she was anything but withdrawn. He usually woke up just before six. This morning, he’d been roused at 5:30 from sleep by little kisses raining down on his upper back and shoulders. She woke him up slowly, not talking, but touching and welcoming him into consciousness, the new day, and, ultimately, into her. Afterward, they had taken a shower together, and she had thrown her clothes on.

  “I have a bunch of shit to do if I am going to meet you back here at noon. Noon, right?”

  “Why don’t you wait for me at the Artist’s Deli at around 12:15? You can enjoy some coffee. I’ll pick you up from there, and we’ll take a cab to the airfield.”

  “I’ve never been on a private plane. I’m excited.”

  “I don’t know what to expect. The US Marshals are footing the bill. They’re the guys who handle asset forfeiture of ill-gotten booty, so it might be a pretty cool plane.”

  “Might be a four-seat Cessna with a waterbed in back. Some people roll freaky.” She said this with a happy little laugh.

  “Mile-high club, here we come. OK. I’ll see you there. Call if there are any problems or second thoughts. It’s a pretty big step.”

  “Going away for a weekend with a complete stranger?”

  “No. Going to Hattiesburg. Didn’t you see Mississippi Burning?”

  “Yes, and you should know if I get a chance ever, in my life, I’m humping Willem Dafoe. Just deal with it.”

  “If he happens to be with Emily Watson, we’ll both get our wish.”

  “Emily Watson? Not that little girl from Harry Potter?” She made a preemptive I hope you aren’t a pervert face.

  “No. God, no. I’m old enough to be her…babysitter.”

  “At least.”

  Al feigned hurt then said, “Robbing the cradle as it is.”

  “Or I’m robbing the grave.” She looked beautiful, with her wet hair finger-combed and that wise-assed little smirk on her face.

  “Did you see Silence of the Lambs?”

  “Yes. I’m not that young.”

  “OK. Did you see Red Dragon? Same author and some of the same characters.”

  “Oooooh. Yeah. With Edward Norton. I’m afraid he’s on the hump list as well.”

  “There will be plenty of time to hump after we identify the luscious Emily Watson. Now, remember the blind girl that the psycho falls for?”

  “The one that gets to pet the tiger?” She sounded really excited.

  “Yes! Her. And I draw the line at you humping the tiger.”

  “Killjoy. OK. Got to run, dammit. Stop being charming. Go be an actor. Kill a couple of kings or something.” She kissed him briefly but deeply and swept out of the room.

  His routine had continued on his other mornings: up Fairbanks, left on Superior, then a right up an alley that ran behind Gino’s East, left on Chicago for a half a block, then a final right on Superior, which took him all the way up to his little Tai Chi spot. After his Tai Chi, he’d reverse the order and go over to the Theatre. He was shedding some of his bulky muscle already and figured he would be five to ten pounds lighter and a hell of a lot more flexible and lithe by the time they opened.

  Today, as the elevator opened on the ground floor, he noticed a very large black man in the lobby of the hotel. Al wouldn’t have thought much of it, but as soon as he’d walked off the elevator, the guy’s head had jerked up, he’d glared at Al, then shot off a six-to ten-letter text to some unknown recipient. As an encore, he stood as if he was ready to leave the lobby. Al took an impromptu turn to the front desk and asked the clerk if there were any messages for him. He knew there weren’t, but he was checking out what the big dude would do. Probably just paranoid.

  Al was looking in the mirror behind the desk, and the big dude was just standing there like he was waiting for something. When he saw Al was looking at him in the mirror, he became very interested in the bad impressionist reproduction painting on the lobby wall.

  Al said to the spunky little woman behind the counter, “If I go this way…” he pointed to his left, “Is there a side door that goes out to Fairbanks?” He was speaking quietly. It wasn’t so quiet that it seemed strange, just like an appropriate sound level for a “just between us” conversation.

  “Oh, ya.” She pronounced “yeah” so that it rhymed with “bra.”

  “You from up north?” She sounded like she still had one foot in North Dakota, or Nodak as they said, on occasion.

  “Oh, ya. Just outside Fargo.”

  “I spent some time in Halstad. Cold, but nice folks.” He’d taken part of an Easter break there when he was in graduate school.

  “Oh, ya? I’m from up Grand Forks. Small world.” People from Nodak often left the word “in” out of sentences indicating location. So I’m from up in Grand Forks changed to I’m from up Grand Forks. It was odd, but by no means the strangest part of the Great White North.

  “Small world. You have a nice day, now.”

  “Oh, ya! You too, now.”

  Al left the spunky little Nodak woman and went through the side door. Sure as the wind blows, the big guy was following. He was wearing those off-yellow work boots, Dickie’s work pants, a tee shirt or two, and a lumberjack plaid. He didn’t look like he was walking to work, unless work involved following and/or impeding the easy sailing of private investigators.

  Al emerged from the coffee place with his sunglasses on. Yellow Shoes was waiting on the street just one store back from where Al had come out. The guy must have thought that Al hadn’t noticed him. It was like being followed through the streets by a camel--a camel that had dubious blending-in skills. Al continued north. He’d been thinking about the fellow following him. He’d been walking the same route every day without really realizing he was setting a pattern that could be followed. He hadn’t thought to do differently because he didn’t think he was anywhere near close to attracting negative attention. Obviously, he was wrong.

  Instead of continuing north to Superior, he turned a block early, onto Huron. There was an angled storefront window just around the corner. Al stopped in front of it and pretended to check a spot on his hoodie. He licked his finger and scratched at the imaginary spot, watching Yellow Shoes in the glass’s reflection. Al crossed to the north side of Huron, turned right into an alley, then ran fifty feet down the alley and hid on the far side of a dumpster.

  He crouched silently, waiting for something to happen. Yellow Shoes didn’t disappoint. He was jog-walking up the alley. Al could hear his untied boots flopping along. The guy obviously didn’t think he’d be running this morning. Al picked up a long dow
el rod--he thought it was a discarded mop handle—and, as Yellow Shoes passed the dumpster, Al stuck the dowel between the guy’s rapidly shuffling feet. The guy went down hard, and Al jumped on top of him.

  Al kept a Kubotan in his pocket. It was on his keychain when he was carrying keys, but he had no keys with him in Chicago. His hotel used those coded key cards, but he still carried the cylinder of solid metal. The Kubotan is a small weapon, held in either an icepick grip or a forward grip, depending on what you were going to do with it. It weighed about as much as a roll of quarters and hardened the fist, so it helped when punching. It was a little longer than a closed fist, five and a half inches end to end, so it could be used to jab uncomfortably into people’s tender parts, or you could gain leverage on wrists, fingers, and joints. The advantage to such a weapon, especially in the hands of someone who knew how to use it, was that it was an entirely legal weapon to carry concealed. As long as it wasn’t sharp, it was just a little metal rod. Cops knew about them and were often trained to use them. Al figured he didn’t make the laws and abided by them when he could--and it was convenient.

  This time, Al simply took the blunt end of the Kubotan and pressed it into the fleshy base at the bottom of Yellow Shoes’ skull. There was quite a nice roll of fat there to dig into. He was sure it felt like the tip of a gun. Al said pleasantly, “You seem to have tripped.”

  “Get the fuck off me, man.” Yellow Shoes wasn’t yelling, but he was talking loud, and Al didn’t want to be caught straddling a helpless man in an alley, even if the helpless man was two hundred sixty pounds and probably could have been a walk-on for the Bears.

  “I’m going to give you the benefit of having at least a little knowledge about tools of the trade. I am holding a silenced .22 caliber Ruger semi-auto to the back of your beefy head. It’s loaded with low velocity long rounds. That means I can put two bullets in your medulla oblongata and it’ll sound like a bulldog just pinched an aggressive loaf back here. Do you get what I’m sayin’? Say it back to me like I’m a third grader.”

  “You’re hurtin’ me, man.”

  “I’m going to if you don’t do as I asked. Explain.” He applied a little more pressure.

  “Low velocity silenced .22 wouldn’t be heard by Superman and I’d be dead as hell. That about right?”

  “Excellent. Now, question two. Why are you following me? I’ll assume because you didn’t just shit your pants that you were pretty sure today was going to be about things other than art appreciation and texting your friends.”

  “Supposed to give you a message and leave an impression.”

  “Well, it’s not just you, because you were texting someone; someone who will be expecting us shortly, but has no fucking idea where you are right now.” He felt the guy under him tighten up a little then relax back to how he was. “Oooh. Yeah. Sorry about that, but I guess you hadn’t thought about that part. You knew which way I was gonna go, but I fucked that up and jumped you before you could send a report back. What was the message?”

  “Can we get off the ground and talk? I think I’m lying in pigeon shit.”

  “Better than a pool of your own blood. In case your sources didn’t tell you, I’m kinda lukewarm about the whole law-and-order thing. I’m OK with breaking the rules. Message. Now.”

  “You’re supposed to stop asking questions. Just do your acting thing and we won’t kill you. Then we were supposed to bust you up some but leave you able to function and try to keep your face pretty. I guess we’re too late for that part.” Unbelievably, Yellow Shoes rolled then. He knocked Al off of him then tried to do something he and his friends used to call “steamroller.” It was a Bill Murray gag. If you were lying next to someone and nothing was going on, you just yelled, “Steamroller!” and started rolling over the other guy. It was good fun when you were eleven years old and bored. When you were doing it in pigeon shit with a potentially homicidal maniac, it wasn’t very cool.

  Luckily, the guy decided to roll to his left. Al was holding the Kubotan in his right hand. He was knocked onto his left side and still had the small weapon in his right hand. The guy had rolled with him. They were in an awkward position that was almost totally non-conducive to violent action by either of them. The guy was lying on Al like a beached whale. He was saying something about laying on his white bread ass until his friends came and blah, blah, blah. Al had the Kubotan in his right hand with the excess length poking out of the side of his hand closest to his thumb. He had his thumb pressed against the side of the little metal rod. Yellow Shoes was thrashing about trying to discern where the gun was. He lifted his right arm out to the side of his body. Al thought he was going to maybe go for Al’s head. Al brought the piece of metal up viciously into the ribs, armpit, and arm of the big guy on top of him. The rib shot didn’t do much. The armpit shot was a little better, but Al was hoping to hit a nerve plexus of some kind. There were all kinds of sensitive things in the armpit area.

  On the third strike, Al hit the nerve that runs down the inner part of the upper arm, the nerve that controlled the movement of the thumb, index, and middle finger. More to the point, if this nerve was hit with significant force on a concentrated area, it had the same effect as getting kicked by a small mule. Al’s luck was in, and the blow landed cleanly. Yellow Shoes let out a silent scream and instinctively rolled away from Al. Al rolled over with the guy and got him in a choke hold. The hold, though against the rules for restraining prisoners, worked very well if you got your arm around the person’s neck and got a strong grip on it. If held long enough, you could kill someone with the hold, but Al didn’t want to kill this guy. He was just doing his job. Al held the choke hold for sixty seconds, give or take. The big guy slumped and was down for the count. Al worked quickly. He stripped the laces from the guy’s shoes. He used one to tie the guy’s legs. He used the other to tie his arms behind his back. He pulled a Jimenez JA9 9mm pistol out of the guy’s pants. It was a tawdry, piece-of-shit gun. They cost less than $150, so you didn’t feel bad if you had to chuck them off of a bridge. He took the guy’s cell phone and wallet. He took the cash--$123--and the guy’s ID. This was Al’s way of delivering his own message. I know where you live now, asshole. Al found a pen in another of the guy’s pockets, grabbed a piece of paper from the alley’s floor and wrote, “I could have broken your bones, taken your clothes, called the police, or killed you. I didn’t as a professional courtesy. Please return the favor. I won’t be nice next time. Al.” He stuffed the note in the guy’s t-shirt pocket. He felt a little bit bad. The guy was going to have one fuck of a headache when he woke up.

  Al got up and backtracked to the opening in the alley. He turned on the guy’s phone and scrolled through some of the messages. He found out that this guy was with two other buddies and they were, indeed, supposed to beat his ass and send a message. The one important detail he found was that they were not supposed to off Al. One little text even said:

  Don’t kill him.

  Sup? Y not?

  You kill him you get killed. DON’T kill him.

  K. Dats fucked up but k.

  As Al was digesting this bit of information, he realized there was a message waiting. Sup Zee? We gud?

  Al tried to write plausibly. He hated internet slang, but he did his best.

  We gud. Thot he saw me. He gettin BJ from bich in ally!

  Fur realz?

  Fuckin ho. Aly back a Med skool. Tween Supeeier and Chic. Waitin fo u on Supeeier end of aly.

  Aight.

  He was going to run over to the alley behind the Feinberg School of Medicine. He figured the two guys would be looking for their buddy. Probably dressed the same. They’d know what he looked like so he had to get there before them. He started off at a dead run. He was hoping there were only two of them, that they weren’t packing, and if they were, they wouldn’t be dumb enough to kill him. You kill him you get killed. DON’T kill him. None of this was for sure, but he’d take the chance. His blood was up now, and he’d learned some very important
information. He’d gotten under someone’s skin. Somehow, he’d stumbled onto someone with their hand in the cookie jar. There was a killer, and he’d pissed someone off. What can I say? I’ve got a gift.

  He got to the alley behind the school. It didn’t look good. There was a little cover by a dumpster, and there was a back door that was to a service hall or something, but it was probably locked.

  He ran to the door, checked it and it swung open freely. Lucky break. He looked out from inside the door. With the door cracked open, he had a good view of the dumpster but couldn’t see the end of the alley the two guys would be coming from. It would have to do. Just then, the phone in his pocket buzzed. It was a text.

  Were yat?

  Had to walk by. At other end. Cop saw me. He down here. I stop him if he come back. Stop him from comin. U do it. He pass dumstr. Hidin with ho. Go befoe he cum.

  Keep pig out. We got dis.

  Al waited at the door. He’d cracked it open and was keeping it open with a little wedge of rubber he’d found. His plan was to wait for them to go past then hit one from behind. He’d have to dance with the other one, but he figured one-on-one was an OK deal. He hadn’t really worked out yet today.

  Two guys walked by. He’d obviously taken out Big Billy Goat Gruff. He was looking at Medium Billy Goat Gruff and Little Billy Goat Gruff. Medium was further away from him, and both of them were walking slowly toward where the dumpster was. They had one hundred percent of their attention focused ahead of them, so if he was quiet, surprise would be his advantage.

  Al stepped quietly out into the alley. He was going to sucker-punch Little because he was closer, then fight with Medium. When he saw Little’s pants, he amended his plan slightly. Al hated it when people let their pants sag. He was scared back in the early 1990’s when Kriss Kross, a two-rapper group, started wearing their pants backward. They were young, just a little more than kids, but they wore their denim backward. The fad hadn’t caught on, thank God, but wearing pants baggy had caught on. It had gotten ridiculous. Al had seen some guys, all races, wearing their pants completely below their asses. Someone had even written a song with the lyrics, “actin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground.” Well, Little was actin’ like a fool, and Al just couldn’t resist.