Start Shooting (33 page)

“Shut up!” My hands slam my ears. The cabdriver stares from his mirror. I fumble into my purse for my phone. The 9-millimeter stops me. Bobby is Ruben’s brother; you can’t call him. My fingers slide under and around the 9-millimeter’s grips. The panic fades. What did
Ruben mean “get Bobby involved any deeper and it’ll kill both of you”? That’s the second time he’s threatened Bobby.

The cab changes lanes as we climb above my father’s river, twenty-nine years later still the demarcation between the haves and have-nots. We reach the bridge’s apex on the west side of the river above an oily, half-mile-wide switching yard clogged with thirty or forty dormant trains. Just beyond their rust and decay, the Sunday Market sprawls ten blocks north and south on Canal. Twenty thousand Mexicans. A one-day foreign country. And Ruben Vargas, their
patrón del barrio
.

Chicago’s immigrants come here for a taste of home, to buy from the rows of homemade tents and hawkers, to wade through the burlap sacks of chilies, first communion dresses, radial tires, cowboy boots, piles of used tools, and fresh-cooked goats. Even in the dead of winter this market is border-town Mexico, the same food frying, the same musicians playing.

My father hated Mexicans. Hated their food, their language, the soap they used.
Scabin’ bastards, workin’ my river for a day’s pay niggers wouldn’t take free
. Coleen and I hated our father right back, as much as any two nine-year-olds could.

On Sundays Ruben’s a king here. That’s why he picked this place to meet. The market is considered the “Mexican door” to the Four Corners; if you’re Hispanic, the safest way home. My hand pats the gun. But Ruben isn’t going home. And neither am I.

The cabdriver ekes through a break in the throng at the market’s middle intersection. At the first opportunity he turns left, drives south to Fourteenth Street, and drops me ten blocks from where the Brennan sisters and the Vargas brothers grew up. I stand at the corner, anonymous in the overflow of buyers and sellers. Why get in Ruben’s car? Why come here if you’re
not
getting in the car? Two hours ago I shared the stage with Jude Law; now I’m about to share a car and a murder weapon with Ruben Vargas.

Call Bobby. Run away.

Or listen to the voice, walk east toward the market, put two in Ruben’s chest, call it self-defense, for me, the city, the Shubert Theater Company.

Ruben’s Crown Victoria is double-parked at Canal facing me, windows
up, engine running. Last chance to call Bobby. If I get in Ruben’s car, there’s no turning back—either I use the 9-millimeter in my purse or front Ruben’s blackmail on Furukawa. Anything else is a bet on the daytime-TV fantasy that three different prosecutors and the Korean mafia will believe I’m innocent enough to be left alone.

Is the 9-millimeter’s safety off or on? Ruben’s shape is bleary in the glare of his windshield. And the stage at the Shubert is very, very far away. Bump from behind; I jerk away; a Mexican man with his daughter stares as he passes. Ruben pops his door but doesn’t get out. His door closes and he honks the horn.

Decide.

I reach in and thumb-off the safety. Kill Ruben, or don’t. Believe him and blackmail Furukawa, or don’t. You can’t run and you can’t hide. Do murder now, or—Or don’t do it and call Bobby. I glance the buildings and dead-end streets, and the one absolute fact the Four Corners carves into your guts, true when Coleen and I were hugging each other in the shower, true when I was thirty-two on that pier in Santa Monica, and true now—happy endings require a girl believe in miracles; and to make it that far she better be able to pull the trigger.

I walk to Ruben’s car, bend to see in the backseat, then get in the front. Ruben has a bandage above his eye and a fat lower lip that the distance at the Shubert and Pearson Street hid. His attention stays straight ahead, intent on something, toothpick moving between his teeth.

Decide. My heart begins to pound.

Ruben turns to me, watches me inspect his face as my fingers creep to the gun. He says, “There’ll be two of ’em, the Japs I told you tried to cap my partner before she brought in me and Robbie. Dr. Ota thought he could rob her instead of pay. Now she’s got me, and so do you.” Ruben nods over his seat. “I’m giving you something to hand them. After you do, say, ‘Open it.’ ” Ruben stares hard at me. “Understand?”

The
something
I’m to give them rests on the backseat, a six-inch tube of Pillsbury biscuits taped over at the top.

“Then you say, ‘The 10K or the concert after.’ Got it?”

“What?”

Ruben glares. “Repeat it, Arleen. ‘The 10K or the concert after.’ ”

“10K or the concert after.”

Ruben points into his mirror. “They’ll be at the corner in ten minutes.” He reaches over the seat, grabs the biscuit tube, and shoves it toward me. “Don’t fuck this up and you’re halfway home. Do anything other than what I tell you and you won’t live long enough to stand trial in Illinois or California.”

“I want out, Ruben. Now.” My fingers reach the 9-millimeter’s grip. “I mean it.”

“Me, too.” He backhands me into the window, jerks my purse away, and removes the 9-millimeter. Ruben drops in a tiny electronic device and throws the purse back. “This ain’t my first day out here. Remember that. And you don’t know shit about how things work—out here or at the courthouse. Illinois doesn’t plea bargain murder for extortion, even to get a cop, no matter what they fucking promise. And California doesn’t care about heroics in Illinois. And the feds cut bait, always trading up for bigger fish. Follow the script. Be an actress. Prove Tharien Thompson should go home and she will.”

Blanche’s scarf lies on my knees. I’m not strong enough to kill Ruben with a scarf. “What’s in my purse?”

“I wanna know what they say.” Ruben puts a device in his right ear and winces.

I chin at his bandage and lip. “Somebody finally whip your ass?”

“Remember this,
chica
. Fuck with me and I better die. If I don’t, you will. My brother, too, if he’s with you.”

I grab the scarf and Ruben’s biscuit tube, then exit the car. The tube’s heavier than it should be. I walk east to the busy corner. Maybe Dr. Ota’s women will shoot me and get it over with. Five minutes pass; no Japanese women. On the other side of the center-stall line, an Asian woman is out of place, surrounded by Hispanics. She has long black hair and the same sun hat as Ruben’s woman in Water Tower Square. Is she Ruben’s partner? Robbie’s Vietcong bitch? If she is, would she get this close to the two Japanese women who tried to kill her? Can I use that? Somehow?

Bump. A woman in black has her back to me. Bump. I turn to another woman, this one facing me. Japanese. Almond eyes tight in mine. “Hello, Ms. Brennan.”

“How’d you know my name?”

“Do you have something for me?”

“Are you—”

“Yes, I am.” She extends her hand.

I hand her the biscuit tube. “I was told to say, ‘Open it.’ ”

She accepts the tube, but doesn’t open it. “Anything else you were told to say?”

“The 10K or the concert after.”

The Japanese woman nods. “That doesn’t allow much time. Where are your partners?”

“No, no, not partners. I’m being coerced into this. Just want to go home.”

“We all do. Please inform your partners we will analyze the vial you have provided. Should it be what you represent, we are pleased to do business. Unfortunately, the analysis cannot be completed by four o’clock. Possibly, by concert time.”

I don’t understand the meaning, but nod that I understand the message. “Not by four o’clock, but possibly by seven. And they’re not my partners, okay? Understand?”

She nods, but doesn’t believe me. “Your telephone number, please.”

“No.”

My purse is jerked off my shoulder. The first woman in black who bumped me pulls out my cell phone, flips it open, reads the number, puts my phone back, and hands me my purse. She doesn’t see Ruben’s gadget. She is Japanese as well.

Behind me, the woman with Ruben’s Pillsbury tube says, “If you have the Hokkaido package, we will do business. Should you disperse a particle prior to the ransom being paid, or speak of it publicly after the payment, we will kill your families and your friends. All of them. And all of you—Ruben Vargas, Robbie Steffen, Lý Thi Loan, and Arleen Brennan.”

“No. Listen, I’m not—”

She’s already gone. I turn for the woman who had my purse; she’s gone. The Asian woman in the stalls is gone as well. Just Arleen Brennan on the corner, turning in a slow circle. My phone vibrates in my purse. Sarah! I got the lead. This nightmare’s over—

Ruben says, “Walk west on the south side of Fourteenth Street. Keep walking till I pick you up.”

Downtown and the Shubert are the other direction. Tharien Thompson’s audition ended an hour ago. Producer, director, and backers have met. They’ve picked their actress. Ruben’s call should’ve been Sarah. Sarah should call me, right now. Everyone loved me; I’m part of the family.

Ruben’s voice: “Move,
chica
.”

I do, but not toward Ruben’s car. On Roosevelt I flag for a cab. Ruben pulls to the curb. “Get in.”

I backtrack. Ruben rolls in reverse, talking to me through the passenger window. “Hey, c’mon, you did fine. We’re cool.” He pops the passenger door. “C’mon. We’ll go see Sarah.”

I jump around his front fender, slide through traffic to the north curb and wave at a taxi that passes. Ruben flips a U, pops his siren, and the open door almost knocks me down. “Get in, I’m not fuckin’ around.”

A squad car slows and pulls in behind Ruben, the driver eyeing me. Need a plan B; have to kill Ruben and Santa Monica. Think. Decide—

“Arleen. In the car.”

Running away won’t work. I slide into Ruben’s car. He flips another U, hand out his window, giving the squad an air-pat/no-problem, then wheels us eastbound on Roosevelt. “We’ve got a surprise for the master race. One more step—”

“Not me. I’m done.” I turn to check the squad car through Ruben’s back window. The squad car hasn’t moved. “Let me out at the next light.”

Ruben pops his siren and doesn’t slow down. “Want the Shubert? That you probably won?” He glances at me. “You’re done when I say so, not before. Open that brown bag.”

The bag is on his console where I leave it. Maybe the bag is plan B. “What’d that woman mean, ‘disperse a particle’?”

“Wanna be a big star? The faster we finish, the faster you walk away. Open the bag and do what I tell you.”

I don’t. Ruben cocks his hand. “Open it.”

Plan B. If the bag’s heavy enough, I’ll smash him across the nose
with it. Take his gun and blow his stomach into the door. Bet he’ll let me out then.

The bag is light. All it contains is an empty, old-style test tube and an odd-looking green rubber cap. Ruben tells me to put the cap on the tube and the tube in my pocket. “I’ll drop you at Michigan and Congress. The reviewing stand is across Michigan in the Congress divider. Get up close now. At 3:55, five minutes
before
they fire the gun to start the 10K, toss that up on the stand at Dr. Ota.”

I shake my head at him. “Not getting shot impersonating Sirhan Sirhan.”

“There’s nothing in the test tube, Arleen. No commotion, no cops chasing you. Only the good Dr. Ota will know what it means.”

“Find another actress. I’m booked for the Shubert.” I reach for the door handle. Locked. I turn to Ruben and he bangs me across the face.

“Don’t make me bust up your moneymaker. And don’t forget who’s your pier buddy in Santa Monica. And don’t forget Robbie and the Koreans—they gotta get paid
with Dr. Ota’s money
or you’re dead, twice.” Ruben tosses me a Kleenex. “Wipe your nose before you bleed on your pretty dress.”

Mercy’s emergency waiting room is loud, sweaty, and tense. I wipe the tears off my cheeks, ease through frightened parents and spouses to a hallway, then left to the T junction that leads to ICU.

The ICU waiting room can’t hold all the men and women in black body armor and T-shirts—TAC and gang-crimes cops who aren’t on duty and six or seven who are. Buff and Jewboy are two of the best-liked cops in 12; Buff may be the best-liked cop on the entire West Side.

In the white linoleum hallway, the grim faces above the armor and pistols describe Buff’s chances. Heads are turning—guys with guns who want answers about Bobby Vargas and little girls, and federal judges, and dead friends.

I hear “Motherfucker,” turn, and a punch lands high on my temple. “Fuckin’ spic mother—” Another punch lands. I spin, duck, and bang into the wall. Buff’s nephew jams a finger at my face. “Coleen Brennan! Fuckin’ Ruben and you killed her.” Jason jumps in and grabs the nephew. The nephew slams an elbow into Jason, gets loose, and dives at me. Jason headlocks him and jerks him back. The nephew screams: “Fuckin’ Vargas brothers killed Coleen Brennan. Goddamn spic reprisals kill Terry Rourke and his daughter. And now Buff—” Jason chokes Buff’s nephew to bright red, drops him to his knees, and lets go.

“Jesus Christ.” I step back from the crowd-wall surging behind Jason and wipe at blood on my forehead. “Do I look Asian? Jason said an Asian shot Buff and Jewboy.”