Cheese Wrestling: A Lt. Jack Daniels/Chief Cole Clayton Thriller (4 page)

T
hey sat in her car without speaking, watching the house, watching the neighborhood itself. The windows on this block were all dark at that hour, except for the flickering television lights of a few upstairs bedrooms. Ukrainian Village wasn’t as isolated as it had once been, back when it was one of the few places immigrants from the Eastern Bloc could find housing. Times had changed, and money talked, and now there were all cultures and creeds mixed in. But tradition was tradition and if you were looking for a Russian in the city of Chicago, that was one of the first places you looked.

Long-legged blonde women walked hurriedly back to their houses from their cars, stumbling after a late night of partying. Their skirts were so short Jack was able to tell the color of their underwear. The Copper didn’t seem to notice, or at least, he didn’t make any comments. Herb would have commented on how they should cover up, and maybe even gotten out and offered them clothes. Her old partner, Harry McGlade, would have been snapping pictures. Back in the old days, some guys put mirrors on their shoes to see up girls’ skirts. Harry had shoes with movie cameras in the toes.

But Clayton said nothing, did nothing. Jack thought he came off like some kind of old-school throwback. He was the kind of guy you’d turn on a television show about cops back in the day when they walked the beat in long trench coats doing tricks with their nightsticks to impress the neighborhood kids. A copper, who called people “ma’am” and “sir.” She pictured a desk sergeant cranking an enormous radio broadcast unit as he said things like, “Attention, all units. Be on the lookout!” and such. She turned to him and said, “So you’re a chief? That’s impressive.”

“Yeah. Not as much as it sounds,” he said softly. “There’s only a few other officers in the department. It’s a little town.”

“Is that why you’re out here in the middle of the night instead of one of your detectives?”

He chuckled and said, “What detectives? One of my guys is the mayor’s son, and he just sits around playing computer games all night, and the other is a raw recruit who just graduated the police academy. He won’t last long though. The state police are already telling him about all their special units and such. They take all my good guys. Hell, they take anything with a pulse, it seems.” He looked at her and said, “Big heads, little hats.”

Jack laughed and said, “Sounds like the Feebies out here. They flaunt all their Special Agent anti-terrorism taskforce crap and our guys fall for it. Next thing you know, they’re in the middle of some Idaho potato farm counting raindrops.”

“You know what FBI stands for, right?”

Fine Bunch of Idiots, Jack thought.

“Famous But Ineffective,” Cole continued. “I should know, I trained with them at the National Academy.”

“You went to the NA?” Jack said.

“Yep. That’s one of the benefits of being the chief. You get to send yourself to all sorts of stuff.” His right pocket lit up and buzzed and he said, “Excuse me, one second” as he pulled out his phone and started to talk.

His voice was low and sweet as he spoke and Jack tried not to listen, making sure her eyes were glued to the target residence’s dark, empty windows and void of activity. She heard Clayton say, “Yeah, I’m just sitting in a car in some neighborhood with one of their Lieutenants. Yes, he’s sitting right next to me.”

Jack turned to look at Clayton, who ignored her and said, “Yes, he’s helping me a great deal. All right, darling. You, too. Get some sleep.” Clayton hung up the phone and let out a long, slow breath. “I’m sorry about that.”

“No problem,” Jack said.

“She couldn’t sleep because I’m not home and she’s… well, I guess you could say she’s old fashioned.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Jack said, smiling despite herself.

Clayton turned his head toward her in the dark, his eyes burning blue points in the light glare of the streetlights coming in through the windshield and he said, “I hope you weren’t insulted.”

“Takes a lot more than that.”

“If she knew I was out here in the middle of the night with some pretty younger city girl, well, she’d probably show up and start shooting.” He frowned a little and said, “How about you?”

“Would I start shooting, you mean?”

“No, I mean, do you have someone to call? You can tell him I’m a female officer, I won’t be insulted. I can even put on a high voice or something in the background and talk about lady things if you want.”

“Lady things, huh?”

“You know, fashion secrets and cobbler recipes and all. That kind of stuff.”

“You stepped out of Mayberry RFD, didn’t you?”

“I’m just trying to help,” he said, flashing the smile.

Jack laughed and said, “My guy is out of town for a few days.”

Clayton scratched his beard and said, “How old are you?”

“How old do you think I am?”

“Question withdrawn. Didn’t mean to get personal.”

“I don’t take anything personally. Nearing fifty faster than I’d like. But getting older beats the alternative.”

“You folks out here retire at fifty?”

“That’s when we can start to collect our pensions, but there’s incentives to stay.”

“It’s not that far away, you know,” he said. “You have a plan for when you hang up your shield? Things you want to do when you don’t have to be out here all hours of the night with strange men, looking at dark houses?”

They were close to one another now, close enough she could feel his arm next to hers.

“I like what I do.”

“I know,” he said. “But it’s not all there is to life, Jacqueline. Trust me on that one.”

“I always trust my elders,” she said, her turn to give him the smile.

Clayton nodded and said, “I knew you were trouble. All you city girls with your slick moves and fancy talk. Mama always warned me about you, and now I see why.”

“You have no idea,” she muttered, smiling to herself. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him stiffen a little, catching himself before it turned into a full-on flinch. Then something passed in her side-view mirror and Jack instinctively reached between her seat and the center console, wrapping her fingers around the handle of the gun tucked there.

“Behind us,” Clayton said, turning toward her.

Jack checked the rearview and got eyes on the group of six black youths coming up on their six. Four more poured out of the alleyways, taking up various positions. It was a coordinated approach. Their baggy pants swished as they walked and the silver stickers on the brim of their baseball hats reflected in the streetlights. All of them wearing black and blue.

“Gangster Disciples,” she whispered.

“How bad?”

“We’re on their turf, and have to assume they’re all packing. They make us as 5-0, and it could get ugly.”

Clayton reached his arm behind her neck and pulled her across the seat toward him, pressing his face up alongside of hers. She felt his mouth against the side of hers, felt his scruff tickling her skin and both of his hands holding her in place, except for when his hand shot out behind her to hit the lock button, automatically securing all four doors.

“Just wait,” Clayton whispered in her ear. “We’ll blow our surveillance if we badge them.”

Funny he was worried about their cover, and she was worried they’d be firebombed and shot.

Jack looked past him, seeing there were three gangsters on his side of the car, trying to look at what was happening inside. She turned her face in toward his, their mouths nearly touching as she squeezed his back and felt the leather strap of a shoulder holster there. Her other hand came up against his chest, feeling with her fingertips as she unbuttoned it.

Clayton said, “What are you doing?”

Jack reached inside Clayton’s shirt and found the handle of his pistol, quietly unsnapping it and withdrawing the gun. She kept her hand flat against the gun’s frame and Clayton’s hand came up to take it from her. He laid his hand on her lap, keeping the barrel of the gun aimed at the seat. She could feel his knuckles and the back of his fingers on her thighs as she moved to pick up her own weapon.

This was certainly something she’d never done with Herb or Harry before.

Clayton had her back covered and she had his, and everything was working until one of the gangsters reached for the driver’s side door handle and gave it a jiggle.

She heard the soft mechanical click of Clayton’s hammer cock back.

“Come on,” one of them finally said. “They ain’t messing with us. Old dude’s just trying to get some. Get back to your spots.”

Jack turned her head slightly, watching as the crew sunk back into the shadows before she finally relaxed. Both of them withdrew back to their seats and quietly rearranged their weapons and clothing.

Jack cleared her throat and said, “Use that one a lot where you come from?”

“Nope,” he said, working the buttons on his shirt. “Never once.”

ALICE MCDERMOTT

A
lice opened the bathroom door. The girl was there, looking annoyed.

“I don’t wanna stay here anymore,” Alice said.

The girl smiled at her, and it was an ugly thing.

“You don’t, huh? Well, tough titties, blondie. You were sold to us, and someone already bought you.”

“Bought me?”

“You signed a contract, remember? To get another hit?”

Alice kind of remembered signing something, when she was with that bike gang. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

But that couldn’t have been real. Right? People can’t buy and sell each other.

She looked over the girl’s shoulder, to the hallway behind her.

I could get past her. Get out of here.

And go where?

Does it matter? Isn’t anywhere better than here?

“You wanna run?” the girl said. “Is that what you wanna do? Or do you want some of this?”

She held up a syringe.

Alice looked at the needle and
ached
for it.

“Back into the cage, and you’ll get some candy. Deal, blondie?”

Alice glanced behind the girl once more. To the hallway. To freedom.

Then she obediently marched back to her cage, and let the heroin make life, and her, beautiful again.

JACK DANIELS

I
 looked at the clock on the dashboard. Four in the morning. The only other people on the streets now were the newspaper men and a few early morning commuters who would have to navigate several hours’ worth of buses and trains and crowded interstates to get wherever they had to go. I turned on the police radio in my car and listened, nothing but standard chatter. There was nothing happening anywhere in the world, I imagined, but at least I wasn’t in my bedroom staring at the ceiling until sunrise.

I pulled up the data sheet on the target house and said, “There’s not even anything on paper we can use to get a search warrant. It’s owned by some old lady we’ve never had any contact with. It’s in the middle of a residential neighborhood and no one has even filed so much as a noise complaint against it. We’ve got nada.”

Clayton’s eyes looked heavy now, like he might pass out at any moment. Finally, he said, “Listen, I appreciate you coming out here with me. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep. If I see anything, I’ll call it in and hope for the best.”

I looked at him. “You’re serious? You think I’m just gonna let you hang out here by yourself?”

“I’ll rent a car or something.”

“No. I’m not saying I want to bail, I’m just saying we’re not getting anywhere just sitting here. We need to come up with a new plan.”

“What we need,” he said, “is to go into that house and take a look. If she isn’t here, we’re wasting precious time. If she is, we’re wasting precious time. Right?”

“Barring a search warrant or some sort of exigent circumstance, I don’t see how. Unless you want to just knock on the door and see if the old lady will let us look around?”

“Not particularly,” he said. “I can picture them cutting her throat in the basement while the old lady stalls us on the porch and tells us to get lost.”

I sighed and leaned back in my seat, trying to get comfortable. “I am open for suggestions, then, but we have to do something.”