City Blood

by Clark Howard

  “Okay,” Gloria finally said. “One time and one time only—just for you, Nicky.” She swiveled around to a terminal beside her desk, inserted a key into a lock in its base, and turned it on. “Master terminal,” she told them. “Accesses anything. It’s always locked when not in use, and I’m responsible for the key one shift a day.” When the screen came up, she asked, “What’s the full name?”

  Nick gave it to her and she quickly keyed it in. Within seconds, lines of data began streaking across the screen like laser beams. Because Kiley and Bianco were sitting at a forty-five-degree angle to the monitor, they could not read what was being displayed. Kiley took out his notebook and pen, poised to write. Presently Gloria began to read aloud, quietly.

  “Subject resides at 3333 Lake Shore Drive, apartment 2201. Registered owner of a 1993 Jaguar two-door, plate number CZ372Y, color teal blue. Last known place of employment: Shamrock Club, 630 W. Lawrence Avenue. Club known to be owned by subject’s brother, Philip Algernon Touhy. Club has a suspected illegal card room on the premises. Only felony record against subject is a charge of receiving stolen property in July 1988, description of stolen property shown as miscellaneous jewelry, charge later dropped. End of record.” Gloria went off-line and the screen turned black. “That’s it,” she said, swiveling back toward them. They were being told the visit was over.

  “Listen, thanks, Glor,” said Nick as he and Kiley rose.

  “Hope you make your case.” She looked at Kiley. “Nice meeting you, Joe.”

  “Same here,” Kiley replied. He meant it, and for the split instant that his and Gloria Mendez’s eyes locked, they both knew it.

  “See you around sometime, maybe,” Nick said self-consciously.

  “Sure, sometime. Maybe.” She reached for some papers on her desk.

  Kiley and Bianco left. In the elevator of the dismal old building, they did not speak or look at each other. Both were glad to be leaving the Shop: because of the way the place was, but also because of the woman, Gloria Mendez. She had made both of them feel somehow immature.

  But they had their information on Tony Touhy—and that was what counted.

  Four

  Bianco turned out of the rush-hour traffic, pulled into a public parking area adjacent to Lincoln Park, and cut the engine. He and Kiley sat silently checking out the high rise at 3333 Lake Shore Drive, just across the wide, divided boulevard from the park. It was an upscale area, near Belmont Harbor, across from the Chicago Yacht Club, over-looking Lake Michigan. Apartment 2201, the detectives guessed, had to be a front corner.

  “Clear day, the punk can probably see into the next time zone,” Bianco said. He glanced at his watch. Six o’clock. They had been on duty two hours and had left the precinct patrol, a gross violation of department regulations, to drive over and check out where Tony Touhy lived. What they found was not very promising.

  “Secure lobby, doorman, gated underground parking,” Kiley said. “All he has to do is say no to the doorman and we don’t even get to the elevator without a warrant.”

  “How about we park near the underground garage entrance on the side there and watch for his Jag. Then block his way.”

  Joe shook his head. “Building like this has got to have some kind of roving security. Unless we happened to get him in the first hour or so, we’d get made for sure. Security cops would run our plate, a report would be filed with the building management, they’d complain to somebody downtown, and we’d be called in.”

  “We could probably cover the joint on Lawrence Avenue, that Shamrock Club, a lot easier,” Nick suggested.

  “Yeah, but that’s a longer shot than this,” Joe figured. “He can probably stay away from the Shamrock Club as long as he wants to, but this is where he sleeps. And he thinks this place is safe.” Kiley looked around the public area where they were parked. There was a telephone booth on the street nearby. “Thing to do is cover both places—at the same time. Me here, you over at the Shamrock. For a full shift.”

  “Come on, Joe, we can’t stay out of the precinct for a full shift, we’d get made for sure—”

  “We do it on our day off, tomorrow. In our own cars. Keep in touch by phone every hour or so.”

  “I’m supposed to take Stella and the girls to a big flea market tomorrow, then to dinner and a movie—”

  “Tell them you have to work, Nick. They know it happens.”

  “I hate to disappoint them,” Bianco said with a pained look.

  “Did we decide to do this or didn’t we?” Kiley pressed.

  “Yeah, we did,” Nick shrugged.

  “Listen, we make this punk on a homicide, it’ll be a major collar. You’ll get a promotion and a commendation.”

  “Me? What about you?”

  “What about me?” Kiley asked shortly, on the edge of irritation. “You think I’ll ever get a promotion, with my record? One more reprimand and I’ll get a fucking demotion. I’m doing this for you, you retarded wop!”

  “Well, I don’t like it!” Nick snapped back. “I don’t like you putting your job, which is all you’ve fucking got, on the line so I can maybe move up in the department. You should be looking out for yourself!”

  “I am! I’m making an investment in you, stupid. The higher you go in the department, the more payback I’m gonna expect. When I get tired of the street, I’m gonna want a nice cushy job someplace, preferably in one of the better divisions and not in that rathole Shop downtown—and I’m gonna look to you to get it. Someday you’ll be a lieutenant, maybe even a captain. I plan to be right there riding your coattail.” Kiley’s voice quieted. “You’re gonna take care of me, right?”

  Nick swallowed, feeling self-conscious now. “Yeah, sure. Right. It’s different when you put it that way.”

  “Good,” Joe ended the argument. “Now let’s make some plans to nail this punk.”

  “Okay, okay. You want to do it tomorrow?”

  “The sooner the better. The punk’s knuckles won’t stay bruised forever. Look, just tell Stella you’ve got to work for somebody that’s sick. Come home after the flea market, then leave the house at the regular time and drive over to the Shamrock Club. Find a good place to stake it out; it’s a busy street, you won’t have any trouble. Meantime, I’ll come down here and park close to that phone booth over there; you get close to an outside phone too, should be easy. I’ll stake out the building garage; if the Jag comes out, I’ll tail him. Wherever he goes, I’ll call you from. If he shows up there, you call me. If we work both places from four to midnight tomorrow, we’ve probably got a good chance of nailing him. What do you think?”

  “Yeah, that’s a good plan,” Nick said. Some interest came into his expression now and he moved Stella and the girls to a lower rung in his mind. “Once we get him somewhere, what do we use for cause?” They were supposed to have probable cause, some legal reason other than mere speculation, for approaching Tony Touhy to look at his hands.

  “If we can see his knuckles and they’re bruised, we bust him on suspicion for the Lynn thing,” Kiley said. “If his hands are covered, like if he’s wearing those faggot racing gloves, we pull a simple identity check on him, ask to see his driver’s license. Probably he can’t get the license out of his wallet with gloves on, so he’ll have to take one of them off. We’ll find a way, don’t worry. Have to, I’ll drag the punk son of a bitch into an alley and do it by force.”

  “No, we’re not going to let it come to that,” Nick said firmly. “You’ve got enough shit on your record already. One more disciplinary hearing and you’ll be back in uniform. Have to, I’ll drag the punk son of a bitch into an alley and do it by force.”

  “Whatever you say, Macho Dago,” Kiley told him with a grin. “So, we set?”

  “We’re set,” Nick confirmed.

  “Pull over to that phone booth,” Kiley pointed, “and we’ll get the number.”

  At four the following afternoon, Joe Kiley parked his own gray Buick close enough to hear the booth phone ring, and at the
same time in position to keep under surveillance the gated side entrance to the underground garage in Tony Touhy’s apartment building. Scotch-taped to Kiley’s steering wheel was a slip of paper on which was printed the license number of Touhy’s teal blue Jaguar: CZ372Y. On the seat next to him was a pair of 750-power binoculars. Joe took a moment to focus the binoculars on a street hydrant very close to the garage entrance. Just as he got the focus locked in, the phone rang in the booth. Kiley was out of the car, with the binoculars, answering it on the fourth ring.

  “Yeah?”

  “Joe, I’m out here,” Nick said. “The joint’s on the corner of an alley. It’s got a parking area behind it, for about a dozen cars, but it’s all marked private and no public parking all over the place. I’m across the street by a deli with a pay phone outside it. From here I can see the front entrance, the side entrance, and one end of the alley. But I can’t see down the alley, and a car could get in and park behind the joint from the other end. What do you think?”

  “You’re covering three out of four,” Kiley told him, “so stay there. Maybe about every hour take a quick walk down the alley to see what’s parked in the back. Get license numbers; if the Jag doesn’t show, we can at least find out who else has parking privileges. Hold on—” He raised the binoculars to look at a car exiting the garage, but it was a green Mercedes. “Okay, false alarm. What’s the phone number where you’re at?” Bianco gave it to him. “Okay, call me if he shows, or every hour otherwise. I’ll only call you if I’m on him. Got it?”

  “Got it, right.”

  “Stella and the girls pissed about dinner and the movie?”

  “They’ve been happier.”

  “We collar this punk, we’ll have a big party for your promotion; they’ll be happy then.”

  “I still don’t feel a hundred percent right about this, Joe. I mean, if this thing works for us, me probably getting most of the benefit from it.”

  “Will you drop it, please? After being down at the Shop yesterday, I wouldn’t even take a promotion now. I’ve decided that all I want to do is continue serving the people of Chicago in the humblest position possible—”

  “Oh, fuck you,” said Nick, and hung up.

  Grinning, Kiley went back to his Buick and settled in. On the floorboard in front of the passenger seat he had a small cooler containing a sliced beef sandwich wrapped in foil, a plastic cup of macaroni salad, and two cans of regular Coca-Cola, the kind that still had caffeine in it. Next to the cooler was a thermos of black coffee that would stay hot for six hours. Removing his hat, loosening his tie, adjusting the big revolver on his left hip, he removed his second, smaller gun, an automatic, from an in-side-the-pants holster near his right kidney, and slipped it under the seat.

  Cars arrived at and cars left the garage at 3333, and Kiley raised the binoculars to his eyes if one of them even remotely looked teal blue and had sleek, Jaguar-like lines. He had, he felt, a better chance of making Tony Touhy than Nick had. If Tony was a typical low-life hood—and Joe had no reason to think otherwise, the punk’s big shot big brother notwithstanding—then he was almost certainly a night crawler, a frequenter of clubs, lounges, illegal gambling dens, fancy cathouses, sporting events, whatever was going on between sundown and sunup. The way Kiley figured it, Tony would probably get out of bed some time mid-afternoon and hit the street in his fancy car between six and seven. Joe had no idea where the punk would head: maybe someplace to eat, maybe to pick up his steady squeeze if he had one, maybe to check in with big brother Phil to see if there were any errands that didn’t require a minimum of high school intelligence. It would be too much to hope that Tony would come tooling out of the garage in his Jag and go directly to the Shamrock. Turn into that alley right under Nick’s fine Italian nose, with Joe right on his ass. Have Joe and Nick right there when he parked, have him get out of the Jag ungloved with eight big, blue, swollen fist knuckles. Hold it right there, punk, you are under fucking arrest. You have the right to remain silencio—

  Yeah. Too much to ask. But even a GA cop could dream, couldn’t he?

  By seven o’clock, on Lawrence Avenue across from the Shamrock Club, Nick Bianco was leaning on a stand-up counter next to the window in the deli, sipping black coffee and toying with what was left of a small antipasto salad. It was all he planned to eat during his shift because there was left-over manicotti at home that Stella would heat up for him when he got there, which by his estimation would be quarter of one at the max. That would be if neither he nor Joe made Tony Touhy and decided at midnight to call it a shift. Of course, if they did make the punk, there would be some transportation and booking time involved, but even if they made him as late as eleven, Nick would still get home to the manicotti on time. There was always the chance that they’d make him after eleven, but Nick felt that was remote. Night crawlers were usually set down somewhere by then, in an illegal card game or crapshoot, still at the Stadium watching the fights or at some bar after a ball game at Comiskey Park, or in some cunt’s silk-sheeted bed. Wherever they were by then, chances are they would be there until they packed in for the night and headed home—which would be after he and Joe called it a night.

  Nick knew that Joe had taken the most likely make for himself, giving Nick the least likely of the two chances for an encounter. Joe frequently did that on whatever situation they worked: put Nick less in harm’s way than he put himself. It was because of Stella and the girls, Nick knew: his family, but of which Joe Kiley felt such a close part. At first Nick resented it, feeling that he was a man and should carry his share of whatever risk the two of them faced. But when he braced Joe about it once, Joe reminded him that it was the senior detective’s prerogative to call the shots in any situation. Joe explained that he put himself through doors first because he liked it that way, he liked being on the edge, challenging the situations, and it had nothing to do with Nick’s wife Stella, whom Nick suspected Joe had a much deeper feeling for than either of them could ever discuss; or Nick’s oldest daughter Jennifer, who was ten and always acted the little lady for her Uncle Joey; or his youngest, Teresa, seven, to whom Joe was godfather and who clung to him like a little primate every time he came over. It had nothing to do with any of them, Joe said; it was just him: He thrived on the risky moment, flourished on the peril of it all, got off on the uncertainty of living or dying on a given night.

  Nick halfway believed Joe Kiley. Of course, he wanted to believe him; wanted to think that it had nothing to do with Joe trying to shield him from primary danger; that it was all Joe’s character, his nature, his disposition toward jeopardy. Nick knew that over the years Joe had been taken to task on a number of occasions for his actions—or reactions—in field situations, the line of fire, judgment calls. He had two serious disciplinary actions in his folder, both of which had resulted from formal complaints and for which he had been given thirty-day suspensions without pay; and he had half a dozen or more reprimands which had come in the wake of informal complaints. Joe was right: He’d never get promoted. But Nick could. And when he did—Joe was right again-—Nick would take Joe right along with him, to whatever good job he got.

  Joe Kiley was Nick’s partner and his friend, his best friend, actually his only real friend. Nick was glad he had finally leveled with Joe about Gloria Mendez. Keeping that from Joe had been a thorn in Nick’s conscience for a long time. Now it was no longer a secret between them and Nick felt much better about it.

  Finishing his coffee and what was left of the salad, Nick went back out and sat in the car again. It was beginning to get dark. He looked at his watch and decided that in fifteen minutes he would take a walk down the alley to see if any cars were behind the Shamrock yet; then he would call Joe at the other stakeout. In fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.

  Right now, he wanted to think some more about seeing Gloria Mendez again yesterday. About how it had felt: so warm, so good. So very good.

  The two detectives maintained their respective stakeouts for more than seven hours, without
a make.

  On West Lawrence Avenue, Bianco did not even see a Jaguar throughout the entire shift. Nine times he left his car and walked into the alley to check the parking area behind the Shamrock, but he had not seen a single car parked in any of the private spaces at any time. Each time that Nick called to check in with Kiley, his voice carried more and more of the disappointment he was feeling. The shift, Nick finally decided, was a bust.

  Over on Lake Shore Drive, Kiley was beginning to feel much the same way. Joe had seen Jags that evening, a number of them, mostly the common colors: black, white, red, a couple of beige ones. Three came out of or went into the building at 3333, and even though in the well-lighted garage entry, where the vehicles had to pause while the gate slid open, all of them were clearly of a different color than Kiley was looking for, he nevertheless focused his binoculars on the respective license plates just to be sure. But nothing.

  Finally, at eleven-twenty, frustration set in completely and Bianco called Kiley, saying, “This neighborhood’s practically shut down, Joe. Shamrock’s only got a couple customers left. I think we struck out tonight.”

  “Looks like it,” Kiley reluctantly agreed. “Okay, let’s wrap it up. Come on over; I’ll wait for you here.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Bianco pulled up and parked behind Kiley and got in the car with him. “What do you think?” he asked. “Just bad timing?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe we’re really on to something: Maybe he’s purposely dropped out of sight because he’s dirty and he knows there’s an outside chance he can be connected. Maybe big brother Phil put him in hiding.”

  “If he’s hiding out, we’ll never make him before his knuckles heal. He’s probably not even in the city.”