Nine Fingers

by Thom August

  “What are you talking about?” Ridlin wailed.

  “Chess,” Sidney said. “He’s talking about chess.”

  “These people don’t play chess,” Ridlin said. “They just kill you and then they go get something nice to eat.”

  I looked at him. “Are you talking about the mob or about the cops?”

  “Come on, that’s not fair. I can control the cops,” he said.

  “Like you controlled them tonight?” I said quietly. “They were everywhere, man.”

  He looked hurt.

  “Sorry, but you gave it to your people, and they took over from there. They do what they always do, and he—you know, He—he saw it coming and he didn’t come near this place, right? And while everybody was looking for him, Jack and Amelia slipped the hook, right?”

  “Vince does make a compelling point,” Sidney said. “There are times for a frontal assault and times for a more indirect approach. One could quote Machiavelli on this, or Lao Tsu for that matter.”

  I figured Sidney as a Machiavelli man—he had had that kind of classical education—but the Lao Tsu was something of a surprise. Akiko was nodding. I figured her for Lao Tsu but not necessarily Machiavelli, although, after all the maneuvering she had done to be with Laura, I was entertaining second thoughts.

  “What’s your plan?” she asked Ridlin. “To keep dangling us like bait and wait for this shark to circle in so you can catch him before he kills us? That sucks.”

  Ridlin wasn’t dangling us, he was dangling her. Sure, I had gotten bitten, and it looked like Jeff had stumbled into his path and gotten chewed up. There was always the possibility of collateral damage, but it was still really about Akiko.

  Unless, of course, it was really about Jack.

  “I don’t know about you guys,” I said. “But the waiting is making me a little nuts. Every time we go out in public, my hand starts to twitch. My eyes feel like I haven’t blinked in a month. Even if I see the guy, what the fuck can I do? Start snapping my fingers like Jack? I can’t do shit, except hope that you get him before he gets one of us. I mean, no offense, I’m sure you’re doing all you can, but it leaves me feeling passive, and I just fucking hate that.”

  “One does want more of a sense of involvement,” Sidney said.

  “A proactive approach,” Paul said, “preemptive.”

  Akiko nodded. “Let’s get them playing defense for a change. See how they feel.”

  There was a chorus of murmurs all around. Ridlin said nothing. He could easily quash this train of thought with a word or a look. He didn’t.

  “So what do we do?” Sidney asked, to no one in particular.

  “We sit down and we plan it out, every step,” I said. “I think the first thing we do is shake them off our trail, go somewhere they wouldn’t think to look.”

  “Quite,” Sidney said. “But where?”

  We all thought for a minute, until Paul spoke up.

  “No one looks in a dead woman’s unmarked grave.”

  We locked eyes. I think I even grinned.

  “To Wisconsin,” I said.

  “Now just hold on,” said Ridlin. “If he saw the, uh, presence here, and held off because of that, he’ll maintain his perimeter and try to pick up the trail on the way out, evading the surveillance.”

  “Like, what the fuck does that mean?” Akiko asked.

  “He’ll be looking to ditch the cops and follow us when we leave,” I translated.

  “No problem,” Paul said. “I know a back way. No one will know we’re gone.”

  “A back way?” I grinned. “More complicated than the way we came in?”

  He smiled and arched his eyebrows. This I had to see.

  CHAPTER 53

  The Cleaner

  In Calumet City

  Friday, January 24

  9:30 A.M.: Drive down in a stolen Calumet City taxicab. In blackface. What you call irony. Got on a tiny mustache, one of those shiny caps with the little brim.

  The cab is for shit. Shakes like it’s got the Parkinson’s. Check the pain. It is not good tonight. A six, maybe a seven. Which reminds me. Take two of the blue pills, one of the red stripe. Reach for the bottle of water. Take a deep gulp. Another.

  Checked the maps. This is a one-way deal. Easy to get in, couple a turns. Then you have to turn around. Come back out. Be better it was a loop. Be better I had a passenger to drop off. Cab going to a club. Dropping someone off. Could take a look around. But no. No one to trust.

  Deserted down here. Not an area a real hack would be cruising for fares. Nothing to do about that. I get stopped? Got papers, decent ones. Got a forty-five under my leg, nice shiny one. The papers do not work? The forty-five will.

  So. Just cruise in, see what is what. No good? Gone.

  11:30 A.M.: Does not take long, see what is what. Streets smell of cop. Flop sweat and powdered sugar. Cheap beer and hard-boiled eggs. They are all over this. Chicago PD cars pulled over everywhere, two guys each. Uniforms with radios standing on the corners. Plainclothes on the benches in the park. Huddled at the bus stops, radios in their ears.

  They trying to make it this obvious? Keep driving.

  1:20 A.M.: Head north. Pull off at Java Jive coffee joint. A drive-through. Park. Think this through.

  A beat-up old Jetta pulls up at the pickup window across from me. I look over.

  I catch a quick look. It’s enough. It is them. It is Amatucci and Jones, sitting in the front seat. Powell in the backseat. They get their order. Off they go. But they stop up ahead. A car pulls up behind them, a Crown Vic. Ridlin, following. The Professor, in the back.

  Do I follow them? Do I stay here? Is this a setup? The cops trolling? Using them as bait? They would not have two separate cars as bait. It would be all of them together.

  Ridlin moves ahead, and both cars head into the street.

  Take off after them.

  CHAPTER 54

  Vinnie Amatucci

  Driving North

  Saturday Morning, January 25

  After a few blocks of gliding through the tall grass, we weaved through some turns too sudden to track and some straightaways too short to notice. We were not going anywhere near the Skyway, but weaving through the neighborhoods below the far South Side. It was two o’clock in the morning, and if I had been cruising on the highway I’d have been getting a little sleepy, but with all the twisting and turning, I was wide awake, my knuckles white on the wheel.

  The plan was that Akiko, Paul, and I would ride in my car in the lead, with Paul navigating for us, while Sidney rode with Ridlin. He insisted on it, vehemently; it’s probably the only time in his life he’d get to ride in the back of a cop car. Ridlin would drop off Sidney in Hyde Park—he had an appointment in the morning he couldn’t miss—then Paul would switch to Ridlin’s car, and we’d all head to Wisconsin.

  Ridlin was right on our tail, no more than a few lengths behind. Paul had promised we wouldn’t be seen, and on this route, the citizens were locked up tight in their beds, and even the criminal class, who own the night down here, was staying out of sight.

  The miles passed in a blur of three-story tenements and strip malls. We doubled back and headed south for a few blocks. Then another left, east, and I looked in the rearview. Ridlin was right behind us. Then another left, north again, and Ridlin was still there.

  But so was someone else.

  I edged out toward the double yellow line in the center to sneak a peak. It was a late-model Chevy, with something sticking up on the roof. Did Ridlin call in the reinforcements, after he had agreed not to? Or was this something else entirely? I started to grip the wheel a bit tighter.

  Another left, and I slowed down as I headed into the turn, forcing Ridlin to brake quickly. This time I stared in the side-view mirror all the way around the turn, and took a long look.

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “I think we’ve got trouble.”

  “Trouble?” Paul asked. “Vinnie, I would have thought that an experienced driver like you would
know exactly where we are.”

  “I do. But so does someone else,” I said, glancing back again. “At the next turn, take a look at the car behind Ridlin’s and tell me if it’s a police cruiser or a taxi.”

  I made another right, hard, then slowed down. Ridlin caught up and then braked, and the car behind him came careening around the corner, trying to keep up.

  “It looks like a cab, Vince,” he said. “But what’s the problem? Lots of cabs work the night shift—you do it yourself.”

  I glanced at him. “I know a stretch near here where the light isn’t so bad. When we get there, I’m going to drift into the center. I want you to look behind us and see what kind of cab it is. It looked red, white, and blue to me, but I need to be sure what company it’s from.”

  “Vince, what is it?” Akiko asked.

  “What’s this about?” Paul chimed in.

  “Will you do it?” I asked him.

  He stared at me a second, then nodded.

  “And while you’re at it, can you try to see if the driver is, you know, black?”

  He squinted, but nodded again. Akiko had grabbed my leg, and was squeezing it hard.

  I saw a stoplight up ahead near a well-lit strip mall. It was green, and I slowed down. We were getting closer, and closer, and yes, thank God, it finally turned yellow. I had almost rolled into the intersection but I stood on the brakes and jerked to a stop. Ridlin stopped behind me, his Crown Vic nose-diving, and the cab stopped a dozen lengths behind him. Paul turned around in his seat. So did Akiko. They were both looking hard at whatever was back there.

  The light turned green, and I flipped the blinker on and inched around the corner, with Ridlin tailgating me. The cab hesitated when he came to the intersection, his wheels barely rolling. Eventually, he turned right as well.

  “Red, white, and blue,” Paul said. “All-American Taxi, number 1751. And yes, it looks like the driver is black.”

  “Shit shit shit!”

  “Vince, what is it? What’s happening?” Akiko’s voice had a little tremble in it.

  “He’s been behind us since Calumet City, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s following too close. And, like I said, he’s black.”

  “Yeah, so?” Akiko said. “Half of the cabdrivers in the city are black, aside from the Arabs and the Russians.”

  “He’s black, and he’s driving for All-American. All American doesn’t have any black drivers, not a single fucking one. And they don’t pick up black passengers, not ever. They wouldn’t be trolling down here, even in the daytime. I think he’s following us…I think it may be him, the guy in the picture, the assassin.”

  Paul frowned. “I didn’t know that,” he said. “About All American, I mean.”

  “When do you ever take cabs, unless you’re dead heading with me?”

  I stepped on the gas and we jumped. Ridlin was right there with us. The cab was taken by surprise, and was slow to react. We raced ahead for five or six blocks and got it up to sixty in a thirty-mile-an-hour zone.

  I jammed on the brakes. Ridlin fishtailed to a stop behind us, the cab slowed after that. I touched the gas, crawled forward. Ridlin moved with us as if my pedal were connected to his accelerator. The cab was slower to react, but accelerated to catch up. I braked again, sped up again. Then I edged a bit to the right and pulled over. Ridlin pulled in behind me, and the cab slowed to a stop a half a block back. No one moved. My pulse was up around two hundred, so I counted to twenty, trying to breathe. Still, no one moved. Green lights, no traffic, no cops? That tipped it. Any self-respecting hack would have said “Fuck it” and blown right by us.

  I thought—what’s my play, here? Do I hope that I’m just being paranoid and drive normally until he drops off on his own? Do I try to lose him with some evasive maneuvers? Do I somehow make it obvious to Ridlin so he can go into attack mode and fucking shoot him? Shit. I stepped on the gas again, grinding through the gears. By now Akiko had a death grip on my leg, her eyes wide as she scanned the scenery flashing past us. Paul was leaning forward between the two front seats, swiveling to look forward and backward, in flashes.

  “Do you know if Ridlin carries a cell phone?” I asked.

  “A cell phone? He’s got to,” Akiko said, “but I don’t know the number. What about Sidney?”

  Paul chimed in. “No. He won’t go near them. He’s worried they’ll rot his brain.”

  I reached for my own phone and flipped it open.

  A woman’s voice came on the line, “Nine-one-one emergency.”

  “Hi. I’m at—” I glanced at the signs as we zoomed past them—“Torrance and 105th, heading north. Can you tell me where the nearest police station is?”

  “Can you tell me what the problem is, sir?” she asked.

  “Can you tell me where the nearest police station is?” I repeated.

  “What seems to be the problem, sir?” she said. She sounded tired and bored.

  “Listen,” I shouted, “the problem is I need a police station and you won’t tell me where the fuck it is! Are you gonna tell me where the fuck it is, or are you gonna tell me your name so I can report you, if I ever fucking find one?”

  I was talking too fast and too loud, but maybe she heard the panic in my tone.

  “Stay on Torrance until it merges into Colfax, go up Col-fax to Ninety-fifth you know, Stony Island Avenue, and take a right, it’ll be a block to the east on your right,” she said, annoyed. “Now, sir, would you please tell me—”

  “Thank for your kind assistance,” I said, and clicked the phone off.

  “Vince, why are we going to a police station?” Akiko asked. “Ridlin’s right behind us. And besides, I thought we didn’t want to get the cops involved in this.”

  “Ridlin doesn’t know what’s going on—he probably thinks I’m just fucking around. And if the guy in the cab catches up to us we’re going to need somebody to get involved. Better the cops than the coroner.”

  I continued to step on it, hitting green lights all the way. Akiko still had her hand on my leg and was starting to cut off the circulation. Ridlin was right on us, but the cab had dropped back seven or eight lengths.

  Then Akiko screamed, “Vince!” and clawed at me. I looked ahead and a woman pushing a shopping cart was stepping out into the street between two cars not fifty feet ahead. I yelled “Shit!” and jerked the wheel to the left, leaning on the horn at the same time. My car swerved and shuddered and I missed her by no more than an inch. Paul was breathing on my neck, his hand clamped on my shoulder. I swerved back to the right and looked in the mirror to see Ridlin miss her and the cab behind him miss her, too, as she stood there frozen in the road. I turned my eyes ahead and stepped back on the gas.

  In less than a minute, we bent onto Colfax and in a couple of blocks we were at Stony Island, and we screeched around the corner on two wheels, with Ridlin riding our ass. Up ahead I could see bright lights in front of an old stone building. I coasted to a stop a hundred yards down the block. Ridlin shuddered to a halt behind us. The cab was still on Colfax, pointing north. We all waited for a minute, unable to breathe, until the cab took off at speed, heading north.

  I waited for another two minutes, then put it in gear and creeped ahead. We circled back south, then west, moseying around the side streets. Paul was still calling out directions, but he didn’t have to; I knew where we were. Akiko had let go of my leg and was slumped back in her seat, the adrenaline flushing from her system all at once. I headed back to Stony Island and turned west and within three minutes we were at the Midway, the southern edge of Hyde Park. I was trying to breathe, but my pulse was pounding in my ears. We stopped at a red light and Ridlin and Sidney drew even with us. Ridlin rolled down the passenger-side window, looked over, made a corkscrew motion pointed at his head. I shrugged.

  Two blocks later we both turned left and rolled up to Sidney’s building. It was dark, not a light on anywhere. And I wished I could say the same for my brain, still racing with possibilities that I had n
o way to confirm.

  CHAPTER 55

  Ken Ridlin

  On the Lake

  Saturday Morning, January 25

  We are meeting in the lot behind the house on the lake where we played last Friday night. I’m there first. With Powell in the backseat, stretched out. Sleeping there since two minutes after we get on the expressway, after we drop off the Professor, his place in Hyde Park.

  We’re in Wisconsin. Again, I have no jurisdiction, the second out-of-state move in twenty-four hours.

  It is foggy. A light drizzle coats everything. The temperature is just above freezing. I turn the car so it faces the road coming in. I put it in park, kill the lights, crack the window a quarter-inch. I lean the seat back an bit, put my elbow on the window ledge, put my head in my hand, and close my eyes. I’m too jacked up to sleep, but my eyes feel like they’re full of splinters.

  I look at my watch. Four o’clock. I crane my neck to the right. Powell is still asleep. I lean my head back in my hand. I take a deep breath.

  There is a sound right next to my left ear. Knuckles, rapping on the window, driver’s-side door. I jump, pick my head up off my hand. My left arm is numb. I look at my watch. Six o’clock, a little after. What?

  I turn my head to the left. Amatucci is standing there in his navy peacoat, the collar up against his ears. He wiggles the fingers of his right hand at me. I look beyond him. Jones is there, shifting from foot to foot, her eyes cast down on the asphalt. I blink and try to get my eyes to focus. It feels like I’m scraping my corneas with sandpaper. Jones stands still for a second and I see Laura Della Chiesa standing behind her. She’s dressed to kill, even at this hour of the morning.

  Amatucci holds up two brown paper sacks.

  “Bacon-and-egg sandwiches and coffee,” he says. “Breakfast of champions.”

  I rouse myself, try to open the door. It’s locked. I fumble for the switch, flip it up, and spill out into the parking lot, my left arm hanging limp at my side, my left butt-cheek tingling.