Street Justice: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Nelscott, Kris

  A familiar male voice intoned, “Good morning. This is WMAQ-TV Channel 5 NBC Television in Chicago…”

  “Want me to shut it off?” Jimmy asked, rubbing his fist over his eyes.

  I should have had the radio on, but we were already past the local on-the-hour news.

  “No, that’s all right,” I said. “Let’s leave it on for now.”

  I usually didn’t watch morning television, but I wanted to see if anyone had reported finding Voss’s body.

  Jimmy meandered down the hall, his slippers scuffing against the floor. Like Laura, he woke up slowly. He would go through his routine relatively quickly though, especially since he knew bacon awaited him.

  When WMAQ finished its sign-on, Sister Rosemary Connelly started a meditation. I almost shut the television off right there, but she was done before I could hurry across the room.

  By the time the health report began, Jimmy was back, wearing a sweater Laura had given him for Christmas, new pants he had professed to hate when we bought them, and boots that the Grimshaws had given him. The clothes were much more suited toward fighting than the clothes he had worn the day before.

  Which reminded me: I needed to check Jimmy’s clothes for bloodstains as well. At least I could wash his. I didn’t dare keep mine in case evidence of my encounter with Voss was on them.

  “You got back late,” Jimmy said.

  “Marcus Welby was still on,” I said.

  He shrugged. “We didn’t really watch nothing. Marvella wanted to talk.”

  I handed him a plate loaded with scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. He grabbed a glass of already-poured orange juice and sat at the table.

  “She said you told her about your mom.” I hoped that didn’t sound accusatory. I was about to apologize when Jimmy talked over me.

  “I didn’t—it was an accident, Smoke. I forgot she didn’t know.”

  “We can’t forget,” I said. “And now we have one more thing to add to our lists of don’t-talk-abouts. We can’t talk about exactly what happened to Lacey. We’re just going to tell people that she got hurt, okay?”

  He hunched over his food. He had been shoveling it in, but he paused for a moment. I knew why. We had too many secrets and I hated adding another.

  “Can I tell Laura?” he asked after a minute.

  “I’m going to tell her,” I said. “You can talk to her about it though.”

  “Okay.” He went back to eating and not looking at me.

  “But you can’t talk about it with anyone else who doesn’t already know. Just Keith, his parents, and Marvella. Okay?”

  “And you.”

  “And me.” I brought my plate to the table. It felt weird to have the television on, almost like we had another guest in the room.

  Jimmy finally looked at me. He had an orange juice mustache, which made me smile. The smile faded when he spoke.

  “I gots worried. You didn’t come back. That guy, he hurt you?”

  “No,” I said truthfully. “He didn’t lay a finger on me.”

  “You found him, though, right?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You gonna tell me what happened?” Jimmy asked.

  “No,” I said.

  He nodded, as if he had expected that. “But he’s not gonna do nothing to nobody anymore, right?”

  “He’s not going to come near you or Keith or Lacey or the school ever again,” I said.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He nodded. “Good,” he said. “Thank you.”

  He sounded so adult, as if Voss had been his responsibility. I was about to say so, when the television announced that the next program would be in Living Color.

  I held up a finger, then leaned back in my chair.

  “Good morning, Chicagoland,” one of the anchors said. I had no idea who he was. I never watched television this early. “More drama in the courtroom of Judge Julius Hoffman yesterday as Mayor Richard J. Daley testified in the Chicago Seven trial. The Chicago Teachers Union plans a strike if the city doesn’t meet their demands by next Wednesday, and below zero temperatures will continue throughout the week. We’ll have all this and more on Today in Chicago, right after these messages.”

  I let out a small sigh. Usually the television news liked to start out with the discovery of a dead body, even on the South Side.

  “You listening for something special?” Jimmy asked. He knew me too well.

  I got up and turned the television off. Then I flicked the radio on as I returned to my chair.

  “For the next few days,” I said, “I’ll be picking you up and driving you to the after-school program.”

  “I thought you said the guy wasn’t going to hurt us none,” Jimmy said.

  “He won’t,” I said. “I’m mostly doing this for Franklin. He’ll take you to school this morning, by the way.”

  Jimmy used the last of his toast to sop up the bacon grease. “He’s pretty upset, you know.”

  “We all are,” I said.

  Jimmy got up and put his plate in the sink. “When you got news about Lace, you’ll tell me, right?”

  “I promise,” I said.

  “Okay.” He slipped out of the kitchen and headed for the bedroom.

  I had half-expected him to ask for the day off school, and then I remembered what Franklin had said that morning. Jimmy had decided to become a scholar, and that required a commitment I didn’t expect of a kid his age.

  But then, I didn’t expect a lot of things from a kid his age, things he had already done.

  He was less upset than I expected as well. But chaos and turmoil were constants in his life, more than they’d been in mine, and he seemed to deal with them.

  I wished I could do the same.

  I finished the last of my breakfast, and listened closely to the radio news. Black stations covered the Panther inquest, even thought WMAQ didn’t. But no mention of dead bodies anywhere.

  I set my plate in the sink.

  As soon as Jimmy left, my morning would start. And as usual, when I was on a case, it would start on the phone.

  I leaned against the edge of the sink. A case. That was how I would look at this. I needed to figure out the answers to the two questions that had come up yesterday. I needed to know who the us was, and I needed to know if this had happened to other girls. I needed to know those answers fast.

  FOURTEEN

  WHEN FRANKLIN ARRIVED, I walked Jimmy down to the car just to make sure Franklin was in good enough condition to drive the kids to school and speak to the principal. Franklin was gray from stress and lack of sleep but he looked coherent.

  Mikie and Norene sat in the back, Mikie in her Girl Scout uniform and Norene wearing pink. She grinned at me through missing teeth, and waved. Keith sat between them looking protective, angry, and tired.

  Jonathan seemed grim. It looked like he knew what happened as well.

  “I promise,” Franklin said as I leaned on his open car window. “I won’t do anything stupid. I’ll stay within the law.”

  He said that almost reverentially, not as a way of condemning me. I believed him. He was still taking night school classes to finish up a law degree that he desperately wanted. He believed it would bring more money to his family, and it probably would.

  He wasn’t going to jeopardize it. Althea wouldn’t let him. She had probably talked to him all last night.

  Of course, she had sent me to do the job her husband couldn’t do. He probably hadn’t even thought of it. Which was good. One of us needed to follow existing Chicago law, even if the police and city government didn’t apply it in Bronzeville much.

  “I’m going to stop in to see the principal just before school ends,” I said. “It wouldn’t hurt to hear complaints from two different parents. Besides, I’m driving the kids to the after-school program today.”

  “I’ll make sure everyone gets there, Uncle Bill,” Jonathan said fiercely.

  He went to the nearby high school. He’d h
ave to walk back to the kids’ school in the cold, and he’d have to be on time.

  Franklin glared, about to say something, but I spoke first.

  “Tomorrow maybe,” I said. “I want to find out a few things first. Let me be protective today, all right?”

  Jonathan looked away.

  Franklin patted me on the arm. “Thank you,” he said.

  Obviously he had been worried about that too.

  Jimmy slid in beside Norene and pulled one of her pigtails, not hard, just a gentle tug. She stuck her tongue out at him.

  My heart twisted. I was glad Franklin was driving the girls to school this morning. I wasn’t certain I could have. Not and kept my temper with the principal.

  “Keep me posted on Lacey, all right?” I asked quietly.

  “Will do,” Franklin said.

  I backed away as he rolled up the window. Then I made my way to the sidewalk as they drove off.

  I’d never quite felt like this before, terrified, and yet forcing myself to remain in place. I felt helpless. The kids had to go to school, and at the moment, the only school available was even more dangerous than I had realized.

  I wanted those girls out of it. I wanted Jimmy out of it.

  But I knew that they had to make their own way in the world eventually, and it would never be an easy path for any of us. No matter what Martin had said about kids being judged by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin, that was still a dream. Those kids had one strike against them just because of their skin color. Then they were relegated to schools in terrible neighborhoods.

  If I could afford to move, I would. Laura had suggested that we list her apartment as Jimmy’s home address. Schools near Lake Shore Drive were spectacular. I had thought it cheating before. I had also thought it charity.

  I was rethinking those assumptions right now.

  But for this week, I needed to send my brilliant adopted son to school. Not that the adoption was legal. I wasn’t sure how to do that with the false names we were living under. I didn’t dare use my old lawyer in Memphis, Shelby Bowler, on this, because I didn’t want anyone to know where Jimmy Bailey was, let alone that he was still alive.

  Jimmy had seen the man who murdered Martin, and it hadn’t been James Earl Ray. I saved Jimmy from being forced into a Memphis cop car that day, a car I thought he might never get out of, and we had fled Memphis, vowing not to look back.

  But I did have to take care of the legal niceties. If Jimmy was going to get into Yale, then we needed everything done properly well before that, just in case.

  Maybe now was the time.

  Maybe now was the time to reevaluate the way I was doing everything.

  I was freezing. The car was long gone.

  I turned around and went inside.

  I had a lot of phone calls to make.

  FIFTEEN

  I CALLED LAURA FIRST. I pulled the phone as close to the overheating radiator as I could, and left the window shut. I had caught a chill outside.

  Laura picked up on the fifth ring. She sounded harried. When she realized it was me, she said, “I’ve only got a minute, Smokey.”

  I needed more than a minute to tell her about Lacey. “I have something important to tell you, and some questions to ask. Are you free for lunch?”

  “I’m not free for anything.” I could hear shuffling in the background. She was doing something else while she was talking to me. “In addition to a series of regular meetings I have to be at, I’m supposed to drop in at the Home Furnishings Show at the Merchandise Mart. There are people there I need to talk to. And then I’m supposed to meet with some professors in the University of Chicago’s Center for Continuing Education. They’re sponsoring that conference this weekend on urban housing and they want some of the building owners there. I’m pretty sure they’re going to just smear us as slumlords, but I’m trying to keep an open mind. So, long story short, I’m not sure I have time for anything.”

  “It’s important,” I repeated.

  She sighed. “Life-and-death important?”

  It was last night. “Not quite that. But close, yes.”

  All the sound of shuffling stopped. “You heard my schedule, Smokey,” she said. “I can’t come down to the South Side this afternoon.”

  “What about your university meeting? I could find you on campus.”

  “They’re coming here. If you and I have lunch, it’ll have to be brief, and it’ll have to be in the Loop. I know you’ve been avoiding it since the trial started, but I have no choice today.”

  I couldn’t tell her that I’d been in the Loop the night before. Of course, the Chicago Seven trial had been closed for the day and none of those courageous national reporters had hung around.

  “Do you know any place not frequented by the players in the trial?” I asked.

  She gave a bitter laugh. “They spread out over the Loop like locusts. Maybe the Terminal Grill?”

  I shuddered. “It’s pretty rundown, Laura.”

  “The reporters and people you know will be in all the nice restaurants.”

  “How about a meal at your desk? I’ll bring something good.”

  “That’ll do,” she said. “I’ve got 12:30 to 1:30 and I’m pretty inflexible about it.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said, and hung up. If I had to go to the Loop, then I needed to be visible for the shortest period of time. I could park nearby and head up to Laura’s office, and be on the street for only a few minutes, as opposed to sitting in a restaurant, maybe attracting attention from someone I didn’t even see.

  Still, I didn’t like going there. But I had no real choice. Both Jimmy and Franklin would talk to her as quickly as they could.

  This afternoon was the only chance I had to speak to her first.

  I carried the phone back to its end table, and then went into the kitchen. I poured myself some coffee. It wasn’t even seven-thirty and I was already on my second cup. It was going to be a long day.

  I brought the coffee into my office. I had left the desk lamp on after Franklin’s call this morning. I took the old blotter and shoved it aside, then unwrapped 1970 from its cellophane.

  It felt like the year was already half over and we hadn’t been in it for a week. I tossed out the cellophane, then sat in the chair I had found at a yard sale. The chair, at least, felt familiar. I grabbed the coffee cup, set it on the old blotter because I didn’t want to stain the new one on its first day, and dialed Sinkovich.

  I had met Jack Sinkovich sixteen months ago when he was one of the undercover police officers keeping an eye on the protestors in Lincoln Park. Later that week, he beat up kids outside of Grant Park during the demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

  Those demonstrations were at the heart of the Chicago Seven trial right now. The state claimed that the seven defendants had crossed state lines with the intent to start a riot. Sinkovich was one of a handful of cops who had been ordered by the department to attend, mostly as “protection” detail in case anything happened.

  Sinkovich believed he was there so that any testimony he would be called to give would be tainted because he’d heard the entire case.

  Since his behavior in Grant Park, Sinkovich had changed. That night disturbed him, and some interactions with me and, in particular, Jimmy, forced him to reconsider long-held beliefs. He defended a black family who moved into his neighborhood, prompting his wife to leave because she didn’t know him anymore.

  Sinkovich was one of the first people I had ever met who was actively trying to become someone else.

  I had no idea if he would succeed, and that really wasn’t my concern at the moment. My concern was this: Since the death of my only other contact on the force, I had to rely on Sinkovich for police department information.

  Sinkovich answered the phone mid-ring. He didn’t say hello. Instead, he said, “You know, Grimshaw, you’re the only person who calls me before eight in the morning.”

  “Some day some
one else will,” I said, “and they’ll ask you who this Grimshaw guy is.”

  “I’ll say he’s a pain in my rear end. Which, by the way, is wearing dress blues. I just put the galoshes over my most uncomfortable shoes, and I’m ready to head out the door, so unless this is important, you gotta talk to me tonight.”

  “I need your help, Jack,” I said.

  “Ain’t it always the way?” he asked.

  It wasn’t always that way. When his wife left, I let him sleep on my couch. His friends had turned their back on him too, and the police department saw him as damaged goods.

  But I wasn’t going to say that right now, particularly when I was about to ask him for a favor.

  “Look, it’s come to my attention that the Starlite Hotel near Jimmy’s school is a by-the-hour place. I was wondering who owns it and if this is a new trend or something else.”

  “‘It’s come to my attention?’ You only talk fancy like that when you done something you don’t want me to know.” Sinkovich might’ve been difficult, but he wasn’t dumb.

  “You said you were in a hurry.” I sipped my coffee. It was hot, and it started to warm me.

  “I don’t know nothing about the Starlite, I don’t know which school is Jimmy’s, and if I don’t leave now, I’m gonna be late, and I don’t need the hassle. You won’t tell me if we’re gonna partner up and as long as you don’t say nothing about that, I gotta be a good boy at the station, or they’ll fire my ass. I can’t afford it, not with the divorce shit raining down. So, I’m outta here.”

  He’d been asking me to consider working with him in our own detective agency. I had been putting him off. He was afraid he would have nothing if he got fired from the force.

  Still, I was going to let the “partner up” comment slide. “This is the address of Jimmy’s school.” I gave it to him. “Can you at least find out about the Starlite for me?”

  “I’m gonna be sittin’ on my ass all day listening to lawyers pretend they’re fightin’ for justice, and then there’s that idiot judge. Yesterday, our fat slug of a mayor shows up and lies through his teeth about what he done. And we’re supposed to work for the SOB! I gotta look real serious and professional and like none of this means nothing to me, and my face is starting to hurt, Bill.”