Precinct 11 - 01 - The Brotherhood (26 page)

“Which won’t be easy.”

“Tell me about it,” Keller said. “You’re born-again yourself, aren’t you, Boones?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You’ll understand this guy. And you can keep him alive so he can testify before a grand jury.”

16

And So It Begins

“Something’s not adding
UP
,” Boone said.

“Oh no,” Pete Wade said, looking at Jack Keller. “Don’t tell me I’ve lost the bet.”

Keller smiled. “Fifty. Hand it over.”

“Now just hang on a second. Let’s see if he really knows what’s not adding up.”

“Do me proud, Boones,” Jack said. “Tell ’im what’s not in place here.”

“Hey!” Wade said. “Quit coaching him. A deal’s a deal. You’re the one who said he was so sharp; let him prove it.”

“I must be missing something important,” Boone said, “because this doesn’t take a genius. I’m just wondering where the U.S. Attorney, the Chicago Crime Commission, and the FBI fit in here. Surely we’re not running solo with this.”

Wade swore and pulled two twenties and a ten from his wallet. Jack plucked them from his hand with a flourish and said, “Thank you for shopping at Keller.”

Boone squinted at Pete Wade. “All due respect, Commander, but you really thought so little of me that you bet I’d miss that?”

Wade laughed. “It wasn’t that at all, Drake. I just thought you’d be so overwhelmed by what was going down that you’d forget to ask about it.”

Boone shook his head. “I ought to charge you fifty myself just for the insult.”

Keller pulled his chair closer. “Here’s the deal. Candelario has this thing about the CCC and the FBI. Can’t stand ’em, doesn’t want to work with ’em. Fact is, he’s the biggest fish we’ve ever had, so that gives him a lot of bargaining power.”

“Enough to keep those guys out of it?”

“So far the only people who have any knowledge of this whatsoever are the chaplain—and all he knows is that PC wants to go legit and work with us—Chief Galloway and the three of us.”

“What about the crime lab guy, Dr. Scandinavia?”

“Waldemarr? All he knows is that Candelario was shooting blanks. He doesn’t know why, and we haven’t hinted.”

“You’re really going to keep everyone else out of it?”

“They have to be informed, of course; even PC knows that. But he won’t meet with us without assurances that the Crime Commission and the feds keep their distance.”

“And the U.S. Attorney?”

“He’ll be up to speed, but he won’t be officially brought in till we’re on the other end, for the indictments, if we get that far. You have any idea how big this is, Boones?”

“Well, ’course I do. What, is there another bet on the table? Somebody thinks I can’t get my little mind around the biggest informant deal in history?”

Pete Wade made a show of pulling out his wallet again before collapsing into laughter. “Sorry, Drake. Just pulling your chain. We have to have a little gallows humor, don’t we? This is going to consume all of us for a long time. You especially. It’s going to be the most difficult thing you’ve ever accomplished—professionally, I mean. Any mobster or gangbanger anywhere in the world gets a whiff that Pascual Candelario has flipped, and he’s a dead man, simple as that. We can’t let that happen.”

“Needless to say,” Boone said.

“Okay,” Keller said, “we’ve got a meeting scheduled with the boss in a little while. But he wants you up to speed before he signs off on this. Here’s what’s going to happen: You know that three-story parking garage six blocks south of your apartment? The one people use when they’re heading for—”

“Wrigley, yeah. Next to the brownstones. I know it.”

“We’re going to give you a half-dozen sets of keys for six used cars we’re going to plant in there, so you can be constantly mixing up your rides. Don’t use the same car two days in a row. No more suits for a while, unless you’re coming down here in your own car.”

“I’m infiltrating? I thought I was too recognizable to be used that way.”

“No. You’re not dressing like a gangbanger. More like a casual grad student, something like that. You’re not trying to fool anybody. You’re trying to be invisible. We’re not sure where and when or for how long you’ll meet with PC, but you should look nondescript and no one should even wonder who you are.”

“Got it.”

“You’ll start with a meeting in Joliet with the chaplain.” Keller found a slip of paper in one of Wade’s file folders. “Name’s George Harrell. You’ll meet him at a Billy’s, the chain restaurant on the main drag there, heading into town.”

“Been there,” Boone said.

“This’ll be like a scavenger hunt. Get what you can from Harrell, and tell him enough to get him to sell Candelario on trusting you. He’ll tell you where to meet PC, if and when they’re both satisfied that you can be trusted.”

Boone nodded, scribbling notes. “Then . . . ?”

Pete Wade sat back and crossed his arms. “Then you work out with PC how we’re going to take down the leadership of the DiLoKi Brotherhood, the big three street gangs, and the Outfit.”

“That’s it?” Boone said.

“That’s not enough?”

“We’re not trying to find bin Laden and win in Afghanistan too?”

“I hope you still have a sense of humor by the time this is over,” Wade said. “You know this is classified top secret confidential. No one else can know a thing about this. No family or coworkers or colleagues, past or present.”

“Really? I shouldn’t put it in my Christmas letter?”

“Only your life depends on it.”

“Give me a little credit. I got that. And I need to say, I appreciate your confidence in me, wagers aside.”

“This could be a career maker,” Jack said.

“Or a career breaker,” Pete said. “Any more questions before we get the chief’s blessing?”

“Yeah. How does Candelario survive this?”

“That’s your job, Boone,” Pete said. “I thought you understood that.”

“No, I mean in the end, when it’s all said and done. We get everything we need on all these guys, everything goes like clockwork, and we cripple them by putting away their leadership. Normally a rat goes into the Witness Protection Program, but where are you going to hide a guy like PC?”

“Good point, Boones,” Jack said. “You don’t. He’ll have to be overtly protected, not try to hide or blend in somewhere.”

“That’s no kind of life.”

“But it’s
a
life, anyway. He has only one other option, and he doesn’t want that.”

“What else is in this for him? There has to be some sort of a deal. I mean, obviously he’ll get immunity from whatever’s hanging over his head. But what else? Anything?”

“I’m going to leave you with all these files,” Wade said, “but here are some of his bargaining chips.”

Pete pulled out several pictures of young Hispanics. “These are relatives of his, mostly nieces and nephews. Within reason we’re going to exonerate them and somehow get them out of the Latin Kings and Queens.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all he asks. Well, and protection for the rest of his immediate family. He’s got a mother and some aunts and uncles he wants kept safe.”

“Not a bad deal for us,” Boone said.

“You kiddin’?” Jack said. “If this goes down the way we hope it will, it will be the best deal the Chicago PD has ever had.”

The three passed Haeley Lamonica’s desk on their way to Organized Crime Division Chief Fletcher Galloway’s office. She glanced up only long enough to acknowledge them with a nod, and Boone had to wonder how much she knew about all this. He couldn’t imagine she would want to be burdened with even one detail of it, and yet it seemed inconceivable that in her role she would have no knowledge. Problem was, he couldn’t ask. If she
was
aware, at some point the brass might ask if Boone had ever broached the subject with her. And if she was not aware, he would violate the code of silence to mention it.

Despite having an office just down the hall from the chief, Boone had seen Fletcher Galloway only in passing during the whole time he had been with Organized Crime. It did strike him, however, that he had never seen the man in anything but his formal and heavily decorated uniform. Boone didn’t know whether a chief was required to dress that way on duty or if Galloway simply preferred it. He thought he had seen other brass in business suits occasionally.

Galloway was tall and thin, in his late sixties. He reminded Boone of an older version of his own father. The man stood to greet the three, then pointed to chairs around a conference table in his office. He spoke softly as if he expected them to pay attention.

“Your reputation precedes you, Detective Drake,” he said. “Stellar service in the face of deep personal tragedy.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Thank
you
for taking on this assignment. I’m assuming from your presence that you have agreed.”

“That’s affirmative, sir.”

Galloway turned to Keller. “You going with the cell phone setup, Jack?”

“That’s our hope, though we have not discussed that with Drake yet.”

Galloway stood suddenly, causing the others to do the same. “I’d better let you get back to it, then. Thanks again, Drake, and I’ll look forward to being kept up to date.”

Not knowing how late his meeting would go with Chaplain Harrell, Boone headed home early in the afternoon and ran through what was to become his daily routine. He worked out, prayed, and read from both his devotional book and his one-year Bible. Wearing thick-soled shoes, jeans, an untucked flannel shirt, and a heavy winter parka, Boone strapped on an ankle holster and set out, briskly walking the six blocks to the parking garage.

There he found a nine-year-old Chevy with a lot of wear and junk in the backseat and on the back shelf. Knowing how the CPD worked, this would be an impounded vehicle whose owner was doing time somewhere. And the car would have had all its invisible needs met to a T by the department mechanics. It would have healthy tires, shocks, struts, transmission, electrical system, and be freshly lubricated and tuned. It only looked like a junker.

Settling into rush-hour traffic, Boone had a sudden urge to call Haeley and just talk. He resisted the temptation; he didn’t want to blow whatever chance he might have had to establish a relationship, even if it was destined to be merely a friendship.

Instead he called George Harrell and settled on where they would meet inside the restaurant. “Nobody ever wants the booth back by the kitchen,” Harrell said with a Southern lilt. “So look for me there.”

The traffic was heavier and the drive farther than Boone had anticipated, to the point where as he was pulling in, Harrell was calling to see if he’d gotten lost. “That would give you a real sense of confidence, wouldn’t it, sir?”

Harrell chuckled. “Well, I was gonna say . . .”

The chaplain didn’t rise from the booth when Boone finally approached, but he reached with a long bony arm to shake hands. He reminded Boone of a carpenter from the church he grew up in. With a lined, chiseled face, Harrell looked to be pushing seventy, but his crew cut was still dark.

“Hungry?” he said. “This place is all right if you like big, unhealthy portions.”

“Sounds perfect,” Boone said, despite that he had been on a healthy eating regimen for months.

“I recommend the meat loaf. Comes with mashed potatoes scooped with an ice cream scooper, dark gravy, and old-fashioned white bread and butter. The beans are canned, almost gray, and probably lethal, so it’s your call on those.”

Boone liked the man already. He was sitting there with a cup of coffee, and when the waitress came to refill it, she asked if Boone wanted any.

“Coke,” he said.

“Man after my own heart,” Harrell said. “Caffeine or sugar, I say go for the poison straight up. And you goin’ with my recommendation?”

Boone nodded, and Harrell ordered two meat loaf dinners.

While they waited, Harrell got straight to the point, leaning forward and nodding for Boone to do the same. “Now, listen,” he said, “they tell me you’re a Christian man. Can I take their word for that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When the food comes, I’ll say grace, ’cause folks round here know who I am and it won’t look out of the ordinary. For all anybody knows you’re some friend or relative. I reckon you need to hear my side of this story, but then you’re on your own, and leave me out of it.

“That’s important to me, ’cause I’m coming up on retirement and the wife and me want to get out of Illinois and enjoy ourselves somewhere that costs less to live. I been in this game a long time, so I know danger when I see it. You don’t need to be telling me how bad this thing could get.

“Now, I want you to know I’ve been played and conned by so many inmates over the years that I’ve got a 360-degree bull detector. Past decade, I don’t think a one of them has pulled a thing over on me, though they keep tryin’, you follow?”

“I do.”

“I’ve had gangbangers show up for chapel a lot, and I can usually tell within five minutes what their deal is. Best-case scenario is that they’re scared out of their minds, know their days are short, and want to get back to their faith or try it for the first time. Then you’ve got the ones who think something religious is going to look good on their record. Worse-case scenario is somebody showing up because someone he’s after comes to chapel thinking he’s going to be safe there. I try to assure safety, but we’ve had violence. If somebody’s out to kill somebody, there’s enough opportunities.