by Clark Howard
“Phil Touhy knew,” Lovat contradicted. “I had already told him how I thought you and Bianco got the confidential information on Tony—”
“So Phil Touhy wanted her killed?”
“Yes—”
“Who killed her?”
“He did.” Lovat swallowed. “And me.” He smiled nervously. “You were right about the handcuffs. You’re a smart cop, Joe. Like I said, there could be a place for you in all of this. But if you kill me, well—” Lovat spread his hands as if the result was obvious.
“I’m not going to kill you, Captain.”
Kiley rose and went over to the front door. He opened it and Allan Vander walked in with his deputy, Bill Somers, and two other Internal Affairs officers. From under his coat, Kiley removed and handed to Vander a mini-microphone and wire he was wearing. He gave Lovat’s gun to Somers.
“Get enough, Captain?” he asked Vander.
“More than enough,” said Allan Vander.
From where he sat, Gordon Lovat stared in disbelief at Joe Kiley. “You set me up,” he said incredulously. “You, a common street cop, set me up—”
Kiley paused to look at him pitilessly for a moment, then turned and walked out of the condo.
Thirty
On Sunday, Kiley left the Shop at three in the afternoon, following a nearly six-hour marathon meeting in Chief Cassidy’s office. He felt unusually good, not tired or emotionally drained, as he thought he should be; the tension of the long meeting, instead of affecting him negatively, had done just the opposite: It had seemed to relieve him of a lot of the psychological baggage he had been carrying around since Nick’s death, seemed to induce a kind of purging, promote a cleansing of his conscience, so that everything he divulged in the meeting relieved his own mental burden of that much weight.
Getting in his car, Kiley actually felt refreshed. It helped that he had an errand now that he greatly looked forward to: He was going to see Meralda Mendez to tell her that she had been right, her mother had not committed suicide, and that of the two men who killed her, one was himself dead and the other was in custody and would be charged with the crime. Kiley knew he was going to feel very good telling the girl that.
The purpose of the meeting, it had been made clear by Cassidy, was to iron out all the wrinkles of the past few weeks, beginning with the killing of Detective Bianco, and to establish a level playing field on which all facts would be examined, all mistakes corrected, all guilty parties charged, and all necessary steps taken to protect the integrity and reputation of every city and county department involved. There should not, everyone agreed with Chief Cassidy, be any holding back of information for personal reasons. Prior to the meeting, Cassidy had strongly emphasized that point to Kiley. In his private bathroom, with the door closed, Cassidy had jabbed Kiley’s chest with the stiffest forefinger Kiley had ever felt outside of parochial school, and said in his most threatening tone, “I want the whole, entire, unadulterated truth from you this morning, Detective, and by God if I don’t get it, I’m going to personally take you down to the academy gym, put you in the boxing ring, and kick the living shit out of you! And don’t think that just because I’m sixty-three years old that I can’t do it, because I by God can! You have caused me enough fucking grief in the last few weeks to last me the rest of the goddamned year and then some! You level with me out there or by God I’ll make you wish you were never fucking born! You read me?”
“Yessir,” Kiley replied meekly, contritely. Cassidy had a way of reducing men to boys.
The police chief’s threat had not been necessary; telling the truth—most of the truth—was already part of Kiley’s plan. He had known all along that the only way to nail Gordon Lovat was with the truth or a bullet—and doing it with a bullet would have let him die a hero and a martyr; Kiley wanted him to go out as a bad cop, and only the truth could do that.
The meeting had begun with a complete narrative by Kiley of all that had transpired beginning with the radio call to investigate a dead body behind the 4-Star Lounge, followed by his and Nick’s decision to break regulations and work that case themselves because Kiley was sure that Tony Touhy had killed the dead woman, Ronnie Lynn. He related how Nick had brought Gloria Mendez into their circle of misconduct by persuading her to help them find out where Tony Touhy resided. Following that were the details of their unauthorized surveillance of both the apartment building on Lake Shore Drive and the Shamrock Club, and how shortly after that unsuccessful operation, Nick had followed Tony Touhy to that same Shamrock Club and left a message on Kiley’s answering machine to tell Kiley where he was; but when Kiley had hurried there, he had been too late and had found Nick Bianco dead.
Kiley explained how he had subsequently discovered in Nick’s notebook the license numbers of all the cars Nick had seen parked behind the Shamrock Club, and how, after finding records access to those license numbers restricted, Kiley had gone back to Gloria Mendez and enlisted her help again. Gloria subsequently had been challenged by Gordon Lovat when he reported her to the captain in charge of records and asked for an audit of her computer terminal. In order to try and mitigate Gloria’s participation, Kiley had set out to prove that although Tony Touhy had subsequently been found innocent of Ronnie Lynn’s murder, that he was, in fact, still responsible for Nick Bianco’s killing. To accomplish that, Kiley had admitted that he illegally gained access to Tony Touhy’s apartment, and in searching it had found Detective Bianco’s badge. It had been his intention, Kiley said, to take the badge to Chief Cassidy and tell the chief everything, but before he could do so, he heard about Gloria Mendez’s alleged suicide.
Through Sergeant Mendez’s daughter, Kiley said he became convinced that Gloria Mendez had not taken her own life, but had been murdered to prevent her from further helping Kiley, and also to silence her regarding what she already knew. At that point, Kiley told the others at the meeting, he felt he had no alternative but to pursue the matter further himself, because there were now two police officers for whose deaths he felt at least partly responsible. He was already suspicious about how quickly Tony Touhy’s older brother, Philip Touhy, had learned that the surveillance of Tony had not been authorized; then when Phil Touhy had attempted to bribe him with a job offer, Kiley felt that the facts pointed toward someone closely connected to the police department.
The only person on the list of names Kiley had whom he felt might be pressured to inform on the others at the Shamrock Club that night, he said, was the obvious outsider: Fraz Lamont. To the astonishment of everyone in Cassidy’s office, Kiley related how he bluffed his way into the old Cortez Theater and obtained information from Fraz Lamont with a concocted story of Fraz being framed for Bianco’s murder. After that, Kiley said, it was a matter of doing a lot of scut work on the computer to track down the unknown “Mr. O” through the Mark VIII leased from Prestige. After Kiley had gathered all his evidence, he had done the right thing and taken it to Captain Vander of Internal Affairs. IA had wired him and sent him to confront Gordon Lovat with the information he already had, in an attempt to obtain more incriminating evidence from Lovat himself. That had been accomplished
Lovat was in custody, being held on racketeering charges, but would eventually be charged with both murders; the state’s attorney felt that if he could not successfully be prosecuted for Gloria Mendez’s death, because of the self-incrimination rules, that he could certainly be prosecuted for Nick Bianco’s death—on Fraz Lamont’s testimony, if no other way. Even though Lovat had not pulled the trigger, the department’s forensic people, who had worked all night, had matched the bullet from Bianco’s body to Lovat’s gun; so Lovat would either have to face trial for the first-degree murder of Bianco, or admit conspiracy to commit that murder by lending Tony Touhy his gun to do it. Fraz Lamont, also in custody, had been brought in by a tactical squad from the Street Gangs Bureau, which kicked in the door of his suburban estate home at three a.m. and was now holding him incognito in a division lockup somewhere, questioning him about hi
s relationship with Mr. O, a photograph of whom he identified without knowing that it was the commander of the department’s Organized Crime Bureau.
It was agreed to at the chief’s meeting that the medical examiner would review his office’s cause of death finding on Sergeant Mendez and issue a revised coroner’s report stating that she had died “under unknown circumstances not incompatible with suicide but having more definite characteristics of a homicide—” On that basis, Captain Cleary was instructed by Chief Cassidy to open a Homicide file on Gloria Mendez, and to pursue Gordon Lovat as a suspect both in that case and in the still open Bianco case. The state’s attorney agreed to act on whatever evidence Cleary could develop to corroborate the evidence they already had. Fraz Lamont would be charged as an accessory to Bianco’s murder, as well as with organized racketeering violations. There was a brief discussion about whether to try to tie either Lovat or Lamont, or both, to the cemetery bombing of the previous day, but the decision was not to pursue that particular matter. The crime had occurred outside Cook County, did not directly involve the city of Chicago, therefore was not their business. The theory on the bombing was still, according to the morning news, that it had been a professional assassination to cut back some of the mob hierarchy to make room for other chieftains. Since no one had been killed or injured except organized crime figures, a general feeling of “Who cares?” was already beginning to pervade.
After the general meeting ended and the non-police department attendees had left, Chief Cassidy called down to the district patrol sergeant on duty to send two uniforms out to Manny’s Deli for sandwiches. While they ate, there was an open, general discussion about how best to deal with their own situation, both internally and with the public. It was agreed that IA should be credited with bringing Lovat down; an image of the department cleaning its own house would then be maintained. Vander’s deputy, Bill Somers, was promoted to acting captain and put in charge of OCB. His first job would be to find out if any of Lovat’s subordinates were also dirty. Kiley was assigned TAD to work directly for Vander, and between the two of them they would develop and back date reports that would show that Kiley had been in B-and-A only as a cover for a deep covert assignment to tie Gordon Lovat with Fraz Lamont. Public Affairs would prepare a press release stating that following an undercover investigation, a police department captain had been arrested for racketeering violations and that other, possibly more serious charges, might subsequently be brought against him. Because of an ongoing inquiry, further details could not be divulged at the present time.
Kiley had managed to come out of the meeting almost without a scratch. He had been able to get away with omitting the names of Father Conley and Bernard Oznina as his accomplices in gaining access to Tony Touhy’s apartment. He had covered the deputy coroner who pointed out to him the bruises on Gloria’s hands. He had successfully concealed the old relationship between Nick and Gloria. And his own involvement in killing Fred Scarp and then using Reggie to get into the mortuary and plant the homemade bomb, that he had learned from Harold Winston how to fashion, was never in question. As far as Kiley could tell, he had walked away clean—without having to involve anyone who had helped him. Nick and Gloria were dead, but at least everyone who had a hand in their killings had been—or in Lovat’s case, would be—punished.
Things, Kiley decided, had turned out about as well as he could reasonably have expected.
When Kiley got to the Humboldt Park neighborhood where the Mendez apartment was, he had to park a block away because it was Sunday afternoon and the neighborhood was crowded. As Kiley got out and walked down the street, he was aware of the hostile looks from the front stoops where Hispanic people sat visiting, and from the young macho males who loitered on the sidewalk, drinking wine coolers around their primo cars parked at the curb. One such group all but blocked the way as Kiley approached, one of them openly pretending to clean his fingernails with a splinter-like switchblade stiletto. The kid looked no more than Meralda’s age, sixteen at the most. Ignoring the illegal knife, as well as the crowding, Kiley worked his way through the group and continued on his way. At another time he might have taken the switchblade away from the kid and kicked his ass, but not today. Today he had other priorities.
At the six-flat Kiley had visited twice before, he saw that the name Mendez was still on the bell. He had thought in passing as he drove over that Meralda might not be there any longer, that she might have gone to live with her father or other relatives. But when he rang the bell, the foyer door was buzzed open almost at once, so he entered and went upstairs. When he got to the apartment, the door was open, and a husky Latin Prince, wearing red and green, was standing in the doorway.
“Wha’ jou wan’, man?” he asked, with a frown that was half hostility, half confusion.
“I want to see Meralda Mendez,” Kiley said.
“She’s not here, man,” the youth said, and started to close the door.
“Hold it,” Kiley ordered, putting stiff fingers against the youth’s chest and pushing him back. “I’ll just take a look—”
“Hey, man, who the fuck you pushing?” the youth challenged loudly, but did not make a move on Kiley, who was a full foot taller.
Stepping into the living room, Kiley felt an immediate sense of dejection as a bolt of memory struck his mind: Gloria Mendez in jeans and an old sweatshirt, buoyant breasts shifting when she moved, sculpted ears so perfect from any angle, eyes so direct and honest—
“Wha’s the pro’lem, man?” asked a taller, cleanly handsome young Prince, being followed into the room by two others, also wearing colors.
“I want to see Meralda Mendez,” Kiley repeated, unbuttoning his coat in case it became necessary to rake his pistol barrel across somebody’s face.
“Oh, yeah? Wha’ jou wan’ to see her for?” the handsome one asked.
“That’s my business. Where is she?”
“I’m right here, Detective,” Meralda said, entering from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “It’s okay, Mundo,” she told the handsome Prince. Kiley saw that she was wearing a tight green skirt and a deeply scooped red blouse. Colors.
“I’d like to talk to you in private, Meralda,” Kiley said. “I have some news for you.”
“About my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” She handed the towel to another Hispanic girl, similarly dressed, who had come from the kitchen behind her. “We can go out front,” she told Kiley.
Meralda led Kiley back downstairs and out to the front stoop.
“You want to sit down?” she asked, sitting on the top step.
“Yeah, sure.” Kiley sat next to her, feeling a little awkward. It had been a long time since he sat on a front stoop with a girl. He was trying to think of a way to tell Meralda what he was there to tell her, but before he could do so, she asked him about it.
“Did you find out that my mother did not commit suicide?” the girl asked without preliminary.
“Yes,” Kiley replied quietly. “You were right about that. Your mother—she was killed, Meralda, by two men who held her and forced her to swallow the pills and whiskey. One of the men has already paid for it; he was blown up in the explosion at that cemetery yesterday—you probably heard about it on the news—”
“Yes. Which one was he?”
“The man named Philip Touhy.”
“And the other one?”
“He’s a policeman, Meralda. Or was a policeman. He’s in jail and will be charged with your mother’s murder.”
“And you know these are the men who murdered Mama?”
“Yes, I know. They are the men.”
“Will there be something in the newspaper saying Mama did not kill herself?”
“Yes. The coroner is going to issue a revised cause of death report.”
The girl lowered her head for a moment, and in profile Kiley could see tears streaking the cheek nearest him. He wanted desperately, as he had in the funeral parlor, to put an arm arou
nd her and comfort her, but on nearby stoops there were Hispanic neighbors whom he knew were watching them, speculating about who he was, why he was there. He would have felt better, and perhaps she would have too, for a brief moment, if he had consoled her like that, but in the long run it would only have alienated her all the more from the people around her. That realization was part of the concern Kiley felt about her future.
“Are you living with your father now?” he asked.
“Are you kidding me?” Meralda replied cynically. “He did the same thing to me that he did to Mama: walked out. As soon as he found out I wasn’t getting the insurance money, he split like a dog.”
“What happened with the insurance money?” Kiley asked.
“My Aunt Lena got it in trust for me. She gives me enough to live on. I’ll get what’s left when I’m eighteen. Until then, I’ll just stay here, where Mama and me lived.”
Kiley nodded. He had no argument to offer. A sixteen-year-old Latino girl in the barrio was as grown-up as she needed to be in order to take care of herself. Unfortunately, that did not mean that she would take care of herself. It disturbed Kiley deeply that Meralda was wearing colors—something that he knew instinctively her late mother would not have tolerated.
“When did you become a Latin Princess?” he asked, trying to keep the question conversational.
“Couple of days ago,” she told him. “When Papa left.”
“Got your tattoo yet?”
Meralda smiled shyly. “God, no, not yet. I’m really nervous about it. Some of the girls tol’ me it hurts.”
“Probably does,” Kiley allowed. All Latin Prince gang members had a small cross, with a single dot at each of the four ends, tattooed above their left nipple. It was a requirement for the girls also, although they were allowed to have it done farther up if they were full-breasted.
