Calumet City (8 page)

The night air swirls in and out for an hour, blowing leaves and tears and dead flowers I can’t see. A storm’s gathering in the east. There’s much to say, very bad things, but how, and to whom? Maybe I’ll sleep here, find a dry place among the forest of spires hidden by the dark, bed down with these ghosts who mean me no harm.

My people. They know I’ve always been more ghost than person. A teenaged boy at the Salvation Mission once told me I was an unfinished song—we were the same age then—a lyric with more breaks than words and nowhere to put the notes. He had pimples, shoes that didn’t match, and a guitar and ran away that same week. I ran a week later.

A shiver shakes through my back and shoulders. I’ll think about something else, call Stella, ask her to feed Jezebel and Bathsheba. My hand flattens on the unreadable marble by my hip and I wonder about the life under it, what it accomplished, wonder what my headstone will say and how soon it will say it…a thought sneaks through the blackout memories and self-pity: This is a famous place on the Northside, a bunch of famous Irish gangsters from the ’20s are buried here.

Why think that?

Annabelle and Roland don’t want to think about Irish gangsters and push them out of way. Annabelle and Roland want the family together again.

I’m up and moving because moving is suddenly better. A dim line of light shimmers through shadow trees. The light must be Clark Street. The gravel path snakes toward it, then away, and finally a section of wall materializes. Squirrels or rats run from my approach. The ’L’ passes somewhere behind me in the dark back to the east. Graceland begins to feel bad, like a dark cemetery would to most people, all your fears peopled in these corpses and religious superstition. That’s someone else’s terror. I know mine. It’s got a name, shoes, saliva…

This section of wall has a gate too and is easier to overcome. A yellow cab passes. I don’t want to go home, not where they can find me.

Who’s they?

You, me, them…Get a cab to the L7. Hide out till morning.

The cab will be six or eight bucks; not like I’ve got it to burn, but I have no idea where I am. Another cab slows and he doesn’t stop either, then a gypsy does—I’m white and a girl—the cabby knows the address or pretends. We catch stoplights as it starts to rain, mist first then heavy drops; the boulevard becomes smeary headlights and shadows. And the traffic signals are brighter than usual, hot, like red spotlights.

My driver checks me in his mirror for the tenth time, eyes all scrunched up. I show him my star too fast and up tight to his ear. "Drive, asshole. Worry about the road."

He cows, wishing he had a thick plastic partition.

Nice, Patti. Real nice
. "Sorry. Sorry, just drive, okay?"

I slip back heavy into the seat, then startle. Annabelle Ganz is here too. She thinks I should wonder how long she was in District 6. I slap her part of the backseat to prove it’s empty. The driver checks me again. Parts of District 6 were white back in the ’80s and early ’90s. But what was Annabelle doing there, other than the twelve years Tracy said she was buried in the wall? My fists ball. No telling who was with her either. They—
God, Roland too
—he could’ve been there. Probably was—

Big shiver. I might puke.

The cab stops outside the L7; the driver eases his eyes back into his mirror. Either a lesbian fantasy or he expects a cop to stiff him. He gets ten instead and watches my ass. I really want to shoot somebody, start to turn but don’t. Maybe I’m not finished crying and just can’t admit it. Julie’s out front under her awning watching the rain.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Took the train. Next time my date is your ex, spare me, okay?"

She slides sideways and blocks the door. "Trace said you ran.
Away?
"

I hard-eye her, then say, "Too happy to stand still," and try to pass. She grabs at the shirt she lent me and I knock her hand away. "Not tonight."

Julie floats her eyebrows and looks down her nose. But she steps out of the way. As I walk through the bar to Julie’s backstairs, Tracy waves me over. I take the stairs from Julie’s office instead. My phone vibrates and I answer without looking.

It’s bar noise and Tracy saying, "We have to talk. I’m coming up."

"Maybe tomorrow."

"No. This is important…for you—"

"I said no." Every part of me clenches. "
Do not
fucking do it."

In the room I do the door locks, sit on the single bed, and want to cry for so many reasons I don’t know where to start. Tracy doesn’t come, nor does Julie. I lie down and kill the lights, then cover my eyes. My son’s face is with me in the pillow, the face I made up for him. The face isn’t his and I’ve never seen it, but it’s what I have. Tonight he’s not enough.

   The night’s all sleepless dreams, hazy and frightened and guilty and then sunrise finally hints at my window, ending a night not unlike drowning. My cell and my pistol share the bed. I check the clock—the superintendent wants me to call at 9:00; this time it won’t be a surprise mission, it’ll be about IAD and the criminal complaints Alderman Gibbons has stacked atop Kit Carson’s CR numbers. I turn on the cell and punch Stella’s number before checking messages.

Stella clears her throat, then says she’s been up for an hour watching HSN and drinking the hot chocolate I bought her. I ask her to feed Jezebel and Bathsheba. She already has and says no locksmith has been by, then wants to know why I don’t think it’s important to fix things. It should be a matter of pride, at the very least. We make a deal—I promise to try harder and she promises to make sure that I do.

Now to the messages. The one that matters is the superintendent’s. He wants to talk at breakfast and
in person,
before I report to 6. That won’t be easy since I’m not at home where he thinks I am; north-to-south rush hour separates us. I only have time to take the aerosol shower and a handful of Altoids, hoping the combination makes me presentable. A TAC officer does not keep the superintendent waiting. I leave Julie a note saying I’ll explain after work, positive I won’t.

The early traffic into downtown is on the way to awful but not quite there yet. I run the summons possibilities—this is my second restaurant meeting with Chief Jesse in three days, this time in Bridgeport, the stronghold of the Daley machine, and in public, not the backseat of a Town Car. The superintendent breakfasting with me could be a show of force or a personal blessing. If I were Chief Jesse, this is the last thing I’d do.

Unless he knows stuff that I don’t.

Duh?

But what? Why parade me when I’m radioactive?

Think
Southside Irish
. Who do they hate more than the English? The smile makes my eyes squint. I’ll stop for a paper as soon as I recognize the geography.

   Outside the Bridgeport Family Restaurant I buy a
Herald
. Page two has my answer. The stacked, one-column header reads: "Hero Cop Threatened by Alderman." I believe they call that spin. Big exhale, like half the firing squad temporarily ran out of bullets. I look up. Inside past the glass, Chief Jesse is waving me to his back booth.

On the way there I accept a handshake from a stubble-faced flannel shirt. One of his pals pats my shoulder. Both think, "The fuckin’ Ayatollah shoulda died on West Madison back in ’69."

The captain who vacates the superintendent’s booth, says, "Proud of you," and gives me a pat too. For a few moments, it’s me who won the beauty pageant. Then I’m alone with the superintendent, surrounded by steamy clatter and Irish accents, and he says, "Nice work."

I can’t tell by his expression whether he means it or not. The waitress brings coffee I didn’t request, smiles like I’m her sister with the mortgage money and steps to the next booth. For sure I’m coming here tomorrow. I’ll bring Cisco and Sonny.

The superintendent asks, "And the word in the ghetto is…?"

I report on yesterday’s Gibbons-Farrakhan missions. The superintendent listens without comment. Not that I provide much to comment on regarding a possible coup d’état.

"You’re transferred to 18, effective an hour ago."

"What?"

"Phone transfer. Enjoy."

"Bullshit."

Chief Jesse now has a pained expression on his face as he balls his left fist, either
really
angry at me or a heart attack working its way down his arm. He hesitates until whichever it was passes. "We are less than a month away from the election, and only two weeks from the casino license vote. The governor called the mayor’s office last night. Threatened us both with the FBI. The governor feels the FBI should be involved in the assassination attempt. Alderman Gibbons wants them in too—a federal probe of ’systematic civil rights violations by the Chicago Police Department,’ the most recent being your Gilbert Court shootings and yesterday’s ’criminal altercation’ between you and his grief-stricken lapdog."

My eyes roll. "It wasn’t an altercation."

"As you know, I am appointed by the mayor; if he goes, I go." The superintendent doesn’t seem to care what I think. "The governor and Alderman Gibbons would like that and never miss a chance to suggest that we do not ’serve and protect’ to their elevated standards. Nor are they shy about charging rampant police corruption."

Rampant police corruption
charges are not new and tend to precede every mayoral election. This year is no different.

"Among the many other recriminations offered me by His Honor last evening, it was suggested in the strongest possible terms that you, Officer Black—soon to be
Detective
Black if you don’t fuck it up here—are not to speak one word to your media pals, on or off the record, about Alderman Gibbons or Monday’s unrelated firefight at Gilbert Court."

"Unrelated to…"

Chief Jesse leans across his plate, staring all the way. "The two dead Gangster Disciples on Gilbert Court are
unrelated
to the assassination attempt on the mayor."

"That’s easy."

"And the assassination attempt is
unrelated
to the body found in his wife’s building across the alley."

Whoa
. The mayor’s wife?

"According to His Honor, and this is a quote, ’his reelection does not need a smear-campaign rabbit trail from Gilbert Court to Calumet City and its sixty years of malfeasance.’ Am I clear?"

I’m having trouble breathing normally as the Bridgeport Family Restaurant fills with smoke only I can see. "Ah, did you say the mayor’s wife is tied to Calumet City—"

"It’s in the paper, for chrissake." The superintendent clenches and unclenches his fist again. "Annabelle Ganz, her husband, and two of their foster kids have
all
been MIA from Calumet City until you and the fire department found Annabelle in the wall."

He frowns at the
Herald
and then the window onto Thirty-fifth. I follow his eyes, hoping there’s something out there that changes what he just said, especially the part about it being in the paper.

He looks back and says, "Not that I give a damn about Calumet City, except that the mayor’s wife once owned the building Annabelle’s buried in—a gift from her grandfather as I remember." His voice lowers. "And I lived there in the 1970s when I first came on, as did a number of other rookies working 6, 7, and the Deuce."

The lovely and talented Mary Kate O’Banion owned Gilbert Court? And Chief Jesse lived there?
I wonder if I wake up, where I’ll be. No wonder this is all in the
Herald
. And Mary Kate has her own "colorful" history. Besides being the mayor’s wife, Mary Kate is the granddaughter of Dean "Dion" O’Banion, a famous Capone-era gangster now remembered fondly as "local color" in spite of the twenty-five murders he committed.

"Certainly her once owning this building and my residence therein is a coincidence. But a coincidence that your media pals, including Tracy Moens, will fan into three days of additional sales, followed by well-timed political attacks on His Honor and myself." The superintendent looks at me as if I understand the political ramifications. "So, Officer Black, you are news yet again, this time at the center of an election-related civil rights smear. And when that news dies, the new epicenter of said smear campaign will be the former owners and occupants of Gilbert Court."

"No need to transfer me. Tell me to shut up and I will."

"District 18. Am I clear, Officer Black?"

"Ah, yeah, but—"

"There are no ’buts’ in the Chicago Police Department this month.
Stay out of all three cases
and
away
from Alderman Gibbons." The superintendent offers a small unreadable smile. "Go forth and make the Northside safe for BMWs and baby carriages until I tell you different."

"What about IAD and the criminal charges—"

"District 18. Now."

The superintendent stands as a photographer approaches, then he grabs my hand and smiles like the professional politician he isn’t. The flash is soundless but loud. He tells the photographer, "P-a-t-t-i," pats my shoulder as he passes, and shakes hands out the door. I look at the
Herald
so I don’t have to meet any eyes and blink like I did when the flashbulb hit me at Ruth Ann’s. The caption under the picture in the
Herald
reads:

"Annabelle Ganz. Murdered in 1993, missing since 1987."

   Three hours later most of my brain is still swimming with what I heard the superintendent of police say in Bridgeport. And why it was said, and why it was said in front of an audience and a camera. I’m a TAC cop, a ghetto action figure; this is Perry Mason from the ’50s.

My new partner is showing me my new neighborhood, using one hand to turn us left on Division Street. He’s young and excited, a two-year TAC officer in 18. Their stationhouse is across from the ghetto high-rises on Division, the projects—Cabrini Green—the only area north of the river I’ve seen that resembles what I’m used to. It’s also where Mayor Jane Byrne and her army of bodyguards lived to prove "public housing is safe," a point that no one could prove. And since she gave us our union, I’m a fan no matter how stupid a stunt it was.