“If you don’t want me to, I won’t use your name. No problem.”
After just a few moments into Walter’s story, Marcus had no doubts that it was true. The structure and details of Walter’s story aligned neatly with just about every other verified Kingfisher story he had heard whistling through the cracked teeth of dozens upon dozens of criminals lying in their hospital beds, handcuffed to the railing.
It was 1983. Walter was twenty years old and working as a runner for a major drug distributor on the South-Side circuit by the name of Lawrence Tressy. One night, Lawrence was supplying Walter and two other runners when the Kingfisher burst through the back door of the house.
“That door was triple-locked,” Walter said, blowing at the rim of a cup of coffee. “I know that because I was the one who locked it. Three bolts. Lawrence was paranoid like that. But then—I don’t even know—the door just flew from its hinges. It’s unreal, Mr. Waters. It’s hard to describe. Like one moment we’re just hanging out, some girls are dancing in the next room, Lawrence is dividing the supply. Next moment the door pounds open—no, it shoots open. And in walks the Kingfisher. We knew it was the Kingfisher, all of us, because we’d all read about him in the paper—your articles, actually. We knew he was tall, big, and freakishly strong. And this dude was tall, big, and freakishly strong. Who else could have knocked open that door like it was nothing? The girls were scared out of their minds and went running and screaming out the front door. So you know, it was just myself, the two other runners, and Lawrence. Lawrence tells us to kill the motherfucker—that’s his word, not mine. Us runners pulled our guns and we just start shooting. I was scared halfway to death, if I’m being honest, but I’m still firing that gun like my life depends on it. Because in my head, it does. We empty our clips into the man. And the whole time, he’s just standing there in the open doorway. Like it isn’t anything. And the moment our clips are empty, Lawrence grabs his own piece from his waistband.” Walter pantomimed the movement, swinging an invisible gun around the coffee shop. “Of course I’m thinking he’s going to get some shots at the Kingfisher, but instead he aims it at us.” He pointed the invisible gun at Marcus’s forehead, his finger hovering over an assumed trigger. “He tells the Kingfisher that if he makes a move, he’s going to kill us three. It doesn’t seem like much of a threat, right? We’re thinking the Kingfisher is here to kill us anyway, so what does it matter if Lawrence pulls the trigger? But then, and here’s the thing, Mr. Waters, the Kingfisher bolts across the room—faster than I could even describe—and he has Lawrence by his throat. Lawrence drops the gun, of course. The Kingfisher squeezes Lawrence’s throat until his whole body goes limp and he lets him drop to the floor. It all happened in twenty seconds or less. The whole thing. From the moment he walked in the door until the moment he dropped Lawrence. Twenty seconds or less. I swear.”
Walter said that when it was over, when the Kingfisher had evidently decided he was finished, he picked up their boss’s unconscious body and threw it across the room, where it splintered the kitchen table. He looked at the three runners standing stunned before him. They held their emptied guns limp at their sides, awaiting whatever hell had crossed their patch of universe tonight. And then he walked out of the house and disappeared into the night without a sound. This, according to Walter, was an act of mercy.
He had saved them twice that night, Walter observed. Once when he stopped their boss from killing them. Twice when he stopped himself from killing them.
“What happened to Lawrence Tressy?” Marcus asked.
“He died,” Walter said mechanically. “Died from the attack. Internal injuries, they said later.” His expression grew somber, as though a shadow were slowly passing through him. “Lawrence was a bad man. I’m not saying that he deserved to die like that, but it’s true—he wasn’t a good man.” He paused, picked his coffee back up, and took a drink. “But yeah, that’s all that happened that night. That’s it. That’s all of it.”
Marcus waited until he was sure Walter was finished, because he thought he saw some other thought forming on Walter’s lips, but it didn’t come. “Did you get a look at the Kingfisher’s face?”
“Do you think I was worried about getting a look at his face?” Walter laughed dryly. “I was just trying not to piss myself. I’d shot him, Marcus. And he’d just stood there. He could have killed me without a second thought. But he didn’t.”
Marcus had heard variations of this before. The Kingfisher was evidently bulletproof. He assumed the Kingfisher had invested heavily in Kevlar during his years on the streets. That was the only possible explanation. “Do you think you might be able to give me the names of the other two men you were with that night? I believe your story, but it would still be useful to corroborate your version of events.”
“I’ve lost touch with them, so I’m not even sure if they’re still around. But I guess I could give you their names, so long as you don’t tell them I gave you their names and you don’t use their names in your book. I doubt they’d talk to you, though. I’d be surprised if they did. We’re all older now, maybe wiser, but we still got that street-smart paranoia, you know? That doesn’t exactly go away with age.”
“So then why did you reach out to me?”
Walter’s smile briefly returned. “Call it a favor for a friend.”
“A friend? Who?”
“Doesn’t matter. But listen, I want you to keep something in mind when you write this story, Mr. Waters. A lot of people, especially where I’m from, didn’t see the Kingfisher the way the rest of this city did, the way that a lot of folks like yourself saw him. The Kingfisher wasn’t a hero to a lot of folks who look like myself. He was a villain. This dude beating the hell out of petty criminals—most of them just trying to make a living in a society that didn’t offer them many other options—and leaving them for the CPD to put in jail when he could have just as easily gone and beat some white-collars on the North Side who were committing bigger crimes than we were.”
“What are you getting at?”
Walter thought about it for a moment, selecting his words with care. “I like to think our society is evolving past the Kingfisher’s idea of what justice looks like. I hope you’ll keep that in mind when you write your book.” Walter paused, his eyes seemed to trace a thought. “But I also recognize that the Kingfisher could have beat me, killed me, or done whatever to me that night, but he didn’t. He saved me from himself. That doesn’t make him a hero, of course. I’m not sure what it means, to be honest. Maybe there doesn’t have to be a name for it.” Walter shrugged, leaned back in his seat. “After that night, I knew I had to get out of the game, and I did. I’m thankful to him for that, if only that. I’m one of the lucky ones.”
One of the lucky ones.
Marcus remembered when it was over, thanking Walter for meeting with him and Walter said he was happy to do it and Marcus could see that he meant it. Walter looked lighter, easier, smiling into the sun. A freer man than the one who had walked in the door. Exorcised of whatever demon lurked in that story he’d carried inside him for so long. They shook hands in the parking lot and Marcus assumed that was the last time he would ever see Walter Williams.
* * *
Marcus exited the precinct and walked into the garage where Jeremiah had parked the car just an hour earlier. But it looked different, as though rearranged by the morning sunlight pouring over the concrete railings. The fresh air—or at least as fresh as metropolitan Chicago could supply—did something to clear Marcus’s junk-drawer head as he waited by the remaining fleet of vehicles for whoever was to give him a ride back to his suburban home.
He spent his idling moments looking out over the railing. Daytime clusters of traffic jostling for position, car horns, the smell of diesel trailing lost big-rigs wandering through downtown like whales through an inlet. Early morning passersby clutching coffees to their chests. All of it appeared orchestrated, as though these objects and actors had rehearsed this same scene for months to perf
ect it for an audience of one.
He hadn’t realized how much he missed the city.
Marcus heard footsteps behind him. He turned around to see Jeremiah exiting the precinct, his hands stuffed in his pockets, shoulders flaring against his suspenders. The smile plastered to his face that morning had flatlined into a razor’s edge.
“Weren’t you going to speak with Stetson about something?” Marcus asked.
“There’s no such thing as speaking with Stetson,” Jeremiah grunted. “He talks and you listen. And apparently I’ve been assigned to keep an eye on you,” he said, nearing a car and waving Marcus to follow. “A psychopath killing people out there and looks like I’ll be your loyal escort.”
“I’m sorry,” Marcus said, unsure, feeling guilty without much reason. “I could catch a cab back home. It’s really fine. You should be out there. You should be out there finding whoever is doing this.”
Stetson had told Marcus he was assigning a patrol car to him, just as a safety protocol. Stetson’s voice still echoed in his mind. “I sincerely doubt you’re in any danger. If he wanted to hurt you personally, he would have gone after you first, I should think.” Marcus had searched for any small trace of comfort in this thought but found none.
“Boss’s orders.” Jeremiah threw open the driver’s-side door with a huff. “Let’s at least get going. Last thing I need right now is to be sitting in traffic with my thumb up my ass.”
* * *
They sat in traffic. Jeremiah turned up the AC and leaned his head against the window. He tapped his fingers against the wheel impatiently.
“So you’re that Marcus Waters?” Jeremiah asked, staring ahead at taillights.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re the journalist from way back then. The guy who wrote that Kingfisher book.”
“Yes.”
Jeremiah nodded slowly. “I didn’t even put that together.” He adjusted himself in his seat, laid on his horn. A medley of horns answered him. Jeremiah rolled down his window just enough to expel a few choice words. He settled back into his seat. “Guess it makes sense Stetson would call you in, then. That video and all.”
“Guess so.”
“So maybe you can tell me something. Anything. Because when I talked to him, Stetson was feeding me pure bullshit.”
“He seemed to think it’s a hacker group. The Liber-teens? I guess they wear the same mask as the gunman.”
Jeremiah snorted. “Hackers. Computer geeks. Doing something like this? No way. He probably doesn’t even have a plan to look for the other hostages if he’s just taking aim at some pimple-faced kids living in their parents’ basements.”
“I really don’t know. I gave him some names to check on. But I guess he didn’t seem all that optimistic.”
Jeremiah cocked his head. “You gave him names? Of who?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“The hostage killed in the video was someone I interviewed for my book. Someone saved by the Kingfisher back then. There were two others with him that same night.”
“Jesus,” Jeremiah whispered.
“But like I said, I told Stetson, and I gave him some other names. He said he’d look into it.”
“Look into it.” Jeremiah laughed mirthlessly. “My God, Stetson really is a useless fucking prick sometimes. He’s got just about every single officer running around doing godknows, while his detectives run his petty little errands instead of looking for those people. No offense, Mr. Waters. But for real, what in the actual fuck am I doing here babysitting you? Seriously, though. That man,” Jeremiah shouted at the precinct already four blocks behind them, “doesn’t have an ounce of common sense in that giant-fucking-empty head.”
A stiff silence passed through the car, even with the chorus of horns and engines ricocheting between the buildings growing up alongside them. Jeremiah took a deep breath and released his tight grip on the wheel.
“But he’s the boss, so…” Jeremiah said, casting a glance at Marcus.
“Don’t worry. I don’t care for him much either.”
“Good.” He laid on his horn again. “You know what, I forgot I was driving a cruiser. It’s been a while.” He reached forward and flipped the siren on. The traffic in front of them slowly, slowly inched forward, begrudgingly, to the side of the road, until a path was cleared down the middle of the street.
“This job’s not always so bad,” Jeremiah said as he pulled forward, gladly returning several obscene gestures. He laid on the gas, engine whining, taking sharp turns just for the hell of it. A smile returned to his face as he launched the cruiser across a congested intersection.
“I really should have known it was you in my car today,” Jeremiah said, smacking the steering wheel with his palm. He had fully returned to his previous, cheery-no-matter-what self. “I can’t believe I didn’t put it together. You know, your name is still tossed around the precinct every so often. You have a good reputation there. You were one of the good reporters. The new police reporters at the Inquisitor, the younger ones, they don’t have the same respect for the badge. You know what I mean? They don’t even call or stop by. They just shoot us emails. Three, four sentence emails. Looking for quotes. Can you believe?”
“I figured as much. It explains the recent drop in quality.”
Jeremiah nodded deeply. “Who was your main contact at the station?”
“He was way before your time. Long gone.”
“Dead?”
“Retired. Maybe he’s dead, too. I don’t know. I interviewed him for the book a few years ago, but we haven’t really kept in touch.”
“What’s his name?”
“Paul Wroblewski.”
Jeremiah shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t recognize it.”
“Didn’t expect you to.”
During the Kingfisher years, Paul Wroblewski and Marcus had met once a week at a rust-and-concrete bar near Fullerton under simple conditions: Marcus bought the drinks and Paul shared inside information that he preferred calling privileged instead of confidential for liability purposes. Paul had been the one to first tell Marcus about the bizarre vigilante activity occurring around the South Side. He slid some photographs across the table. A man mangled in a back alley. His cheekbones crushed, an eye out of socket, blood pouring from his nose. Paul explained that there had been a few of these by now, all of them following the same pattern. They were dangerous offenders. This one—Paul pointed at the photograph—even had a warrant out for his arrest for killing an officer. But the real mystery: no one had stepped forward to collect the bounty. More than anything, this was what mystified Paul. His strength as a detective—or his weakness, depending on who you asked—was that he saw people as bodies in possession of motivations and desires and impulses. The rest was skin and bone.
“Been a few of them now.” Paul nodded at the photograph in Marcus’s hands. “Wanted criminals, worst of the worst, showing up around the city like human origami. And whoever is doing it, they’re doing it pro bono,” Paul said, his voice slick and even a little proto-Italian, though his mother and his father hailed from Poland. “It makes no fucking sense.”
Marcus felt sick when he looked at the photograph, but that didn’t stop him from staring at it for the better part of the hour they spent together, most of which was occupied by Paul as he hinted to Marcus that although the police were technically investigating whoever it was behind this, it was a formality more than anything.
“I’ll tell you this much about whoever is doing this,” Paul said, lowering his voice, stabbing the photograph in front of him with a finger. “He deserves a fucking medal. That’s what he deserves. If I ever ran into him, you can be goddamn certain I wouldn’t reach for my cuffs. I’d reach for his hand, buy him a drink. Man’s doing God’s work out there. Bless his stupid soul.”
Marcus, these thirty years later, wondered if Paul Wroblewski was still alive, still drinking in some dingy bar, still blessing stupid souls.
/> Jeremiah was quiet for the rest of the ride into the suburbs. He turned on the radio to a pop station. After one song, the DJ began reading a news bulletin detailing the recently released video. Jeremiah turned quickly to an oldies station, shook his head, and gripped the wheel so tightly his knuckles seemed poised to rip through his skin.
But Marcus paid little attention to any of this. He was trying to remember the last thing Walter Williams had said to him before they parted ways to their respective vehicles. Whatever it had been, it was insignificant. Just a triviality passed between two fledgling acquaintances. But maybe whatever it was he’d said—a “thank you so much for meeting with me” or even just “take care”—would contain in itself some scrap of subtext that would relieve Marcus of the guilt he felt spreading throughout his bloodstream.
Marcus didn’t realize they had pulled in to his driveway until Jeremiah put the car in park.
“Are you all right, Mr. Waters?”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry about what I said earlier,” Jeremiah said. “I’m happy to be looking out for you. It’s an honor, really. I was a kid when you were writing those articles, and they meant a lot to me. It’s probably why I’m here doing what I’m doing, if I’m being honest.”
“No, you were right,” Marcus said, shrugging off the compliment. “You should be out there.”
Jeremiah waved it off. “How about you go try to catch some shut-eye? You had an early morning. I’ll keep the crazies away.”
“No, I’m serious,” Marcus said, fixing his stare to Jeremiah. “Stetson made it sound like he’s going after the Liber-teens, or whatever they’re called. When I told him about the other two people who may possibly be hostages, he took the names, but like you said, I don’t know if he’s serious about it. But these two guys really ought to be someone’s concern, because even if they’re safe, they may know something. Someone needs to find them and talk to them.”
The Reign of the Kingfisher Page 5
