Black Angel

by Thomas Laird

  Arkady smiles and intertwines his fingers and lets his hands rest on the top of the table. He’s trying to come off like some goddamned State Farm Insurance man, some kind of actuary or salesman who does a routine job in this city, someone who goes home to the little woman and the tow-headed kids after a long day of hustling life insurance.

  “This cousin is not affiliated. You know what I’m saying? She is eighteen, a concert-level pianist. Brilliant. Moscow Institute. All that happy horseshit. She wants to stay in this country, scholarships, and so on and so on. Can you help?”

  He’s the fucking “man of the year” at the lodge. He goes to mass on Sundays—Russian Orthodox, of course—and he gives big donations to the poor on the first Sunday of the month. I want to strangle this fucker with my bare hands. He’s one step short of running for public office.

  This cute prick knows Jack will help him, if my partner can. He wants to make it sound like Jack’ll be doing the Russian a personal favor. Everything sounds so friendly that I’m waiting to see him pull out a knife.

  “I’ll do what I can, yes.”

  “Okay. Then tell me.”

  “We’re looking for the man or men who raped the little girl and killed her family and her. You read about it?”

  “Yes. I know the story from the papers,” he answers.

  “He seems to pop up from time to time in the city. If you can give us any information…”

  Arkady has a definite look of inquiry on his chiseled face.

  “Has this man, or men, got a name?”

  “His name is Benjamin Anderson. The other man is Carl Thomas. One of them just shot and killed a man named Philip Brandon, who we think was involved with Thomas, and perhaps with Brandon, in rapes and murders in Kuwait City, a few years back, around the time of Desert Storm,” I explain.

  “That was a mistake for the United States. They were at the doors of that prick, Saddam. Anyway, you want to locate either or both men. I will see what I hear, but I must be very discreet in asking questions, you understand.”

  Clemons nods, and then the waitress brings us our early breakfasts. Then Jack sips from his coffee cup. There is a hush in the restaurant. I can hear the clinking of silverware, and I can see the waitresses bustling to their tables, once in a while. But the quiet is almost unnerving. Sitting next to this murderer is disquieting. His demeanor of civility sickens me.

  I smell sausages and grease and the sweet smell of maple syrup, and it’s all wrong. There should be the odor of the streets, the stench of where Arkady really lives. This is a family restaurant, and his only “family” is the thugs who do his crimes for him. But here he sits, like some kind of normal businessman. Nice threads and cool manners. I can still see the mud on his feet and the blood on his fingertips.

  “These are very evil men, Kady,” Jack tells him.

  “The world is filled with such men,” he tells us.

  His hypocrisy is so blatant that I want to laugh in his face, but I don’t want to screw up our little “trade.” The sweet fragrance of the brewing coffee comes wafting at me from somewhere in the kitchen.

  “These two are especially bad. The word is ‘heinous,’” Clemons tells Arkady.

  “In the Soviet Union I grew up with this type of individual. It was very bad in Moscow before I left. I left to follow my family over here. I do not apologize for the work I do. I’ve told this to Jack before, Detective Koehn.”

  “Will.”

  “Will.”

  He gives me a soulful, sorrowful look, and I almost believe him. But the feeling passes.

  “And I also have no use for those who molest children. Killing might be sometimes necessary. But what those men did to those girls.… That was not necessary or acceptable, even to the people I deal with in my world.

  “I’ll look into it. I’ll make some quiet inquiries. If I find out anything about the whereabouts of this Anderson or this Thomas, I will be in touch.”

  He rises, leaving his breakfast untouched. He drops a fifty in front of us for the bill and raises his right hand before Jack can protest.

  “She’s a very good waitress. Tell her I said so.”

  Then he leaves us as abruptly as he first sat down.

  *

  The FBI has an all points on Thomas and Anderson, as do we. The sighting of the Captain at the museum on Lakeshore was enough to prod Pearce into believing that Anderson is not among the dearly departed. The zombie has risen to the land of the living for our Captain. Now Anderson is an official suspect.

  I’ve talked to Mary from time to time via private calls to her apartment. She wants to get together to “share the wealth” on this case, because she’s been officially assigned to the rape/murder of the Chicago family. It is officially a series killing, so the Feds find a way to get involved, as they always do with headline cases. High profile murders, they’re called.

  I’ve talked to the CPD shrink too. Her name is Brenda Carlson, M.D.

  “The profile you worked up is essentially accurate,” she tells me as I sit in her tenth floor cubicle.

  Brenda has strawberry-colored hair, very curly, very kinky. She has freckles and is in her early forties, like Hannah, and she’s wearing no wedding ring. She’s attractive in a wholesome kind of way. Sort of like a female version of Opie Taylor, all grown up. She looks like a farmer’s daughter who ought to be wearing pigtails.

  “He is a white mail, 25-40. He’ll fit in among people. He won’t make scenes. He will not be involved with spectacle of any kind. No, he’s quiet and unto himself—until it comes to killing. Then he views it analytically, as if he were a scientist watching an experiment. His victims will be on the level of test rats, as far as he’s concerned.

  “He’s a true sociopath. Someone who cannot fathom the evil he does. Or he is extremely adept at rationalizing his behavior. These people he’s murdered were not human. They were objects. He might refer to them all as ‘it.’ It’s typical to depersonalize his targets. It makes them things instead of people, like subjects in a case study.

  “I know you’ve heard most of this before, Detective Koehn.”

  “Some. But this is helpful. Thanks.”

  “You’re looking for a man who would pull off only one wing from a house fly. He would cripple the fly simply to make it suffer longer.”

  She looks up at me with her dimpled chin and her abundant freckles. It makes me want to hug her, until I picture that poor bastard fly of hers.

  *

  Sammy has received no new phone calls. But I drive down to Champaign to check on him in the second week in November. Megan is home in Decatur, Illinois for the weekend. I arrive on a late, drizzly Friday.

  We go to the local college bar. Sammy buys us a pitcher. Beer is unusual for him because he didn’t drink through all his athletic years.

  We sit on stools at the bar. It’s too early for the TGIF crowds. The beers are cheap, but not very cold.

  “I bought a gun,” he tells me.

  I stare at him.

  “Well, I did. I’m not going to let this son of a bitch…”

  “You let us handle him. Get rid of the gun and get a loud dog. It’s much safer.”

  “I don’t like dogs.”

  “Does Megan know you own a piece?”

  “No. I didn’t tell her about.… any of this.”

  “She needs to be apprised.”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  “I know you’re the MBA motherfucker, Sammy, but…”

  “Don’t pull the routine, big brother. This isn’t a competition. You frightened me, and I don’t like being scared. On the field you could take it out on someone with a downfield block, but you can’t grab hold of mist, man.”

  “He’s not mist. He used to be a captain in the Marines. He organized all this shit, over there and up in Chicago. He’s the honcho. And I almost caught up to him back near the Lake.”

  I explain the museum incident to him.

  “Your legs must really be going.”
<
br />   “Everybody’s legs give out. They’re the first equipment to become obsolete.”

  Sammy’s face becomes ashen.

  “You got years to go before yours go south,” I smile at him. “Look, I didn’t come down here to bitch you out. I came to see that you’re okay. I don’t mean to make it sound like I’m checking up on you, but I guess that’s what this is.… What kind of a weapon?”

  “A .38 police special. Got a good deal on it from a grad student here.”

  “So it’s hot.”

  “No, Detective Koehn. It’s all legal. Papers and everything.”

  “You don’t need the hassle, Sammy. What if Megan spots it?”

  “I’ve got it hidden.”

  “So how are you going to gain access if you need it in the middle of the night?”

  He looks at me with a trapped glance.

  “I’ll figure something out. Don’t fucking worry.”

  “I worry. I love you, asshole.”

  “Is this a brotherly fucking moment?”

  “Call it whatever the hell you like, Sammy.”

  “Don’t get pissed.”

  “Get rid of the gun.”

  “I’ll sell it. Okay, all right.”

  “Give it to me. It’ll be safer. You’ll probably get entrapped selling it to an ATF asshole.”

  “All right. I’ll hand it over to you.”

  “Good. Now buy us another pitcher.”

  Suddenly the beer’s gone.

  *

  We ramble by foot back to Sammy’s graduate-student apartment. He’s got a nice, modern facility to live in. A one-bedroom apartment, fully furnished, lap-of-luxury stuff for a college punk and his lady-love. I wish I lived half so well.

  *

  I get back to Chicago on early Sunday morning because I go on shift at 4:00 P.M. I get a phone message at my apartment on the answering machine.

  It’s my father. He says to get my ass to Bridgeport ASAP.

  *

  His house has been trashed. It’s a thorough job, every room, every corner of the house.

  “I just went out to play bingo at the legion hall. I was gone until midnight Saturday, last night. I came home, and this.…”

  There are no tears in his eyes, just deep anger. It’s beyond anger, I’m thinking.

  They’ve slashed the furniture and peeled off wallpaper. It’s been done with extreme prejudice, a complete job.

  I go next door to the neighbors’, on either side of Dad, but neither neighbor heard a thing. It was all done methodically and by the numbers. So I go back inside my father’s house.

  “It’s in the thousands,” he says, his cheeks still crimson with rage.

  “You still have insurance,” I say.

  “Who gives a shit? But yes.”

  “I’m so very sorry, Dad.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “I feel like it is.”

  “It was him, wasn’t it?” he says, looking me right in the eyes.

  I look back at him, but I don’t answer.

  24

  He walked over the line with my father. He already tread too close when he sent me the little “messages.” But the notes made from newsprint didn’t cross over into the personal-vendetta territory. He fucked with my old man, and that was unlucky enough for Anderson. Now he’s involved my brother, too. I’ve talked to Pearce about keeping an eye on my father and brother, and he’s been very good about everything. It’s all been taken care of.

  I want to kill Captain Benjamin Anderson myself, and if it ever becomes possible, I will shoot him. Or break his fucking neck with my hands. Or throttle him with a coat hanger. Or kick him to death with my feet. Or stick him with a very large kitchen knife.

  Whatever it takes, he’s never going to trial, and I will make it appear to be self-defense. I know about crime scenes and what the ME and the CSI techs look for, and I will take plenty of time making sure I cover my own ass. But I will take Anderson’s life if I have the opportunity. He’s gone beyond cop-perp relations. It’s become absolutely personal, and I look at it as nothing more than the moral imperative of protecting myself and my family. I know that it isn’t kosher with the police and with the law itself, but I don’t give a shit.

  He’s a dead man, and this time he will not rise again from the earth. This time I’ll bury him deep, myself.

  *

  Hannah Menke is the woman with whom I want to grow old. Someone has already kicked down her front door and attempted to attack her and her two kids. That was also over my line of demarcation with Anderson. He knows who I care about, and he knows what pushes my personal nuclear buttons, but no matter. I have indeed decided to whack him myself. And I will not involve Jack Clemons in the move I make against Anderson. It’ll be a solo operation. Just like High Noon when Gary Cooper nails John Miller, the bad guy, after Gary Cooper has already smoked the other bad guys. Then it becomes just the two the protagonist and the antagonist, alone, just the two of them for that split second in the dusty street where all Western showdowns take place.

  Sounds theatrical, I know, but it captures the mood I’m in. I should be struggling with the morality of taking the law into my own hands, but somehow, that ethical dilemma has avoided my conscience. It just feels right, putting a very large hole in Captain Benjamin Anderson.

  *

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was-- Jesus, I can’t remember my last confession, Father.”

  “It’s all right,” the priest behind the screen tells me. I don’t even know his name, and I’ve never been to mass at St. Stanislaus, here on the northwest side. I’ve come by myself on my lunch break. Jack is in fingerprints, working on another case we’re involved with. We have six other unsolved murders on our plate besides the Milan murders so we’re too busy for me to linger here with this anonymous padre.

  “I’m thinking of killing a man,” I admit.

  “You know that’s at the head of the ‘thou shalt not’ list,” the cleric says.

  “Yeah, I know. But this guy really needs killing.”

  “That’s a matter for the police, son.”

  “I am a copper, Father.”

  “That’s not good, then.”

  “This man has threatened my family.”

  “And you want to protect your family.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Being a policeman, you know all about the wrongs with vigilante behavior.”

  “Sure. But I don’t care. He trashed my dad’s home in Bridgeport, and he threatened my younger brother in Champaign. And he tried to kick in my girlfriend’s front door—or he had his partner do that one. She’s got two teenaged daughters, and she lives alone.”

  “I see. That still doesn’t excuse what you plan on doing.”

  “Somewhere in my head I know that’s right. But somewhere deeper, someone’s telling me to kill the prick.”

  The priest coughs, or guffaws, or something like the above.

  “Thou shalt not kill is pretty straight up, I’m afraid. I don’t think God was thinking ‘flexible’ with that rule.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, but I can’t see letting this guy go through the system.”

  “You’re putting me in a real bind here, because I should report this even though I’m bound to secrecy in the confessional.”

  “I’d understand if you ratted on me, Father. It’d be your duty.… But it won’t stop me. I’m going to kill him before he can kill anybody else. I can’t let him wiggle away through the system, because I’ve seen smart guys like him do that magic act. His lawyer’ll find a constitutional hole or something, and he’ll squirm out of it.”

  “You won’t kill him.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you’re a moral man and a Catholic. And more important, you wouldn’t be here if you thought you were doing the right thing by assassinating this man. He may be the most miserable excuse for a human being, but you won’t lower yourself to his level, and that�
�s exactly what you’d be doing if you tried to exert justice by yourself. Now tell me I’m wrong.”

  I can’t.

  And I don’t.

  *

  I help my dad put his house back together. The furniture was trashed, so the insurance paid for new stuff. We go to his favorite discount outlet in Oak Lawn on the Southwest side, and we buy everything brand-new. He almost enjoys the shopping spree until he remembers the way the place looked when he came home and saw the damage. New furniture will not replace his belongings because with older guys like my father the things around him were his home, not just the walls, foundation and roof. Anderson or whoever he sent to do all that did some lasting harm to my old man. His home was invaded, not simply trashed.

  *

  We sit on his new three-seat couch. It’s a leather substitute, but it is pretty. He likes the look and feel of leather, and so do I.

  “Maybe this guy did me a favor. The old couch was a piece of shit,” he says to me.

  “Yeah, but I grew up sitting on that piece of shit.”

  He looks down at his hands. And then he looks down the sofa, right at me.

  “I never enjoyed pulling the trigger on the Germans. I knew some of them might be SS or Gestapo—you didn’t get to pick your targets very often. But I looked at them simply as men. They never looked at us that way, Will. We were inferior cattle, as far as some of those supermen were concerned.

  “We fought that war against their line of thinking, as I recall. So if you go after this son-of-a-bitch for vengeance, you’re no better than he is, Will.… You listening?”

  “Yes, I’m listening.”

  “I’ve seen that look on your face. You used to get that same look when you got pissed at someone in the neighborhood or on one of your playing fields. I know that look. You want to take care of things all by yourself.”

  He looks at me but I don’t reply.

  “Am I correct in my assessment, Will?”

  “Yeah. You’re right.”

  “And you’re going to go through with it anyway?”

  I don’t answer this time, either.

  “I didn’t raise you to become a thug with a fucking badge.”

  And he walks into the kitchen for a bottle of Old Style.