Trigger City (6 page)

They were relics of a closed chapter of my life—life before torture. Constant reminders of the man I used to be, and of what had been taken from me. I decided right then that I would make a clean break, leave all the relics behind and start from scratch in the new place. All I needed to pack were my books and CDs, my electronics, clothes, exercise equipment, and kitchen gear. Everything else could go in the Dumpster.

Hell, moving would be a cinch.

Feeling liberated by my decision, I went to the bedroom and packed a small suitcase and left the apartment. I walked a few blocks over to the Red Line and hopped on the northbound El, headed for a dead woman's apartment where so far I'd been able to sleep without nightmares.

E
xcuse me, Mr. Dudgeon?”

The man closed my office door behind him and strode toward my desk and stuck out his hand. “I'm Tim Dellitt. I'd like to hire you.” I stood and shook his hand and gestured to one of the client chairs and he sat and so did I.

I guessed him in his early or midthirties. His blond hair was cut close to the scalp and he wore a precision-trimmed goatee and mustache. His suit was expensive.

“I hate to turn away business, Mr. Dellitt, but I'm on an exclusive case and I won't be available for another seven weeks. If you can wait that long—”

“No, I really can't.”

“Well, I am sorry.” I reached for my Rolodex. “I'd be happy to recommend another detective agency…”

Tim Dellitt held up a hand. “Just out of curiosity then, what are your rates?”

“Depends on the job. Eighty-five dollars an hour, it's billed that way. Eight hundred is my daily rate.”

“And I suppose you charge a premium for an exclusive assignment, like the one you're on now, so I'm guessing you're set to rake in…almost fifty, sixty grand in the next seven weeks.” He smiled and backed it up with a manly wink. “Am I right?”

Subtlety was not this guy's strong suit. I didn't want to know what was.

“Mr. Dellitt, I think you'd better find yourself another detective—”

“Wait, hear me out. Now what if I told you I'm willing to go
double
what you're making now. A hundred grand. All you gotta do is drop the case you're on and work exclusively on
my
case for the next seven weeks instead.” He made it sound nice and friendly. “No wait, scratch that. I think I'll need you for eight full weeks. But I'll bump it up to one-twenty.” Big smile.

“Mr. Dellitt—”

“You didn't even think about it.”

“I don't need to think about it, I already have a client.”

Dellitt shrugged. “So your client will be upset. With a hundred and twenty thousand dollars staring you in the face, who cares? You can refund what he's paid you so far and still come out way ahead.”

We were approaching the tipping point.
This thing might deteriorate rapidly, Dudgeon.
I hit the foot switch under my desk, activating a video camera hidden in my bookshelf.

“How do you know my client is a ‘he'?” I said.

“He, she, it. Whichever applies. Look, I'm making you a generous offer.”

“Very generous,” I said. “And I'm turning it down, with thanks.”

“It's not just the money. The job I'm offering is very safe. Just a research project, no risk at all.” His tone remained cordial. “The job you're on now, maybe it isn't as safe.”

He didn't really just say that, did he? Fuck, he really did just say that.
The muscles in my neck threatened to go into spasm.

I gave him my version of the deadeye, said, “You didn't have to take it that far, Mr. Dellitt. I got your point a while ago. You've made your offer and I've turned it down.”

Without losing the affable smile, Dellitt said, “Gee, I'm really disappointed to hear you say that.”

“You may go now.”

“Really disappointed,” he repeated. Then he stood and left my office without saying good-bye.

I hit the foot switch under my desk again, to turn the camera off.

I lit a cigarette.

I said some bad words.

 

The thirty-five-mile drive from Chicago to Aurora was unmarred by road construction delays. I considered calling the Vatican to report a miracle, but decided against it.

The pope wasn't from Chicago; he'd never understand.

The newscaster on WGN told me another public corruption scandal was breaking. In recent years they'd become as frequent as Cubs losses and revised Iraq war strategies.

Most recently we had the big Outfit Scandal, which snared a bunch of corrupt public servants and cost some lives and made me into a slightly damaged semicelebrity. That was but one of many, and not even the biggest one. We had the Minority Contracting Scandal, the Hired Trucks Scandal, The Riverboat Casino Scandal (successfully suppressed before it could really blossom), the CPD Chief of Detectives Jewel Thief Scandal, the CPD Jon Burge Torture Scandal, the CPD Drug Dealing Scandal…

It had been a bad few years for the Chicago Police Department. Cops had been arrested for sexual assault, extortion, forgery, financial exploitation of the elderly, bribery, solicitation to commit murder for hire…

The new scandal was more bad news for the CPD. Yet again, a convicted murderer had been proved innocent by DNA testing. Another young black man, convicted with no physical evidence against him. Convicted solely on a false confession that had been tortured out of him by cops.

A few years earlier, Governor George Ryan placed a moratorium on the death penalty after a group called the Innocence Project cleared thirteen Illinois death-row inmates through DNA testing. That was just the beginning. New cases came along regularly, and by now more than twenty-five wrongful convictions had been voided, with more on the way.

Ex-Governor Ryan was now on the verge of being convicted himself, on federal corruption charges, but at least he'd done something decent before leaving office. Meanwhile, Washington politicians and media pundits were furiously defending torture as a necessity in the “war on terror.” Their most eloquent opponent was Republican senator John McCain, who knew a lot more about it than they did. He spoke of what engaging in torture makes us as a nation, as a people. And they accused him of being a closet liberal and insisted that torture was “a practical necessity in the post–9/11 world.” Regardless of what kind of people it made us, or what kind of nation we were becoming.

Despite the latest news (or because of it), I felt sorry for the cops. Not those involved in the scandals, but the vast majority of Chicago cops who are generally straight up. And I'd had some friends on the force. Not close friends but definitely more than friendly acquaintances. I'd lost most of them when I helped put some bad cops in prison but that had more to do with peer pressure than anything else. A few of them even thanked me privately, before shunning me publicly.

I needed to approach Hawk River with a different mind-set. I switched from the radio to the CD player and loaded a disc.
Back on the Right Track,
by Sly & the Family Stone.

I cranked the volume and sang along.

I needed the distraction. It was hard not to think about Tim Dellitt's attempt to buy me off the case. Dellitt could've been sent by Hawk River, or he may have been sent by one of the other interested parties. It was too early to say.

And I didn't even know who the other interested parties were.

I
don't know that I can be of much help,
but Isaac Richmond deserves any peace you can get for him.” Joseph Grant was unsmiling but not unfriendly. From a high spot on the wall above his head, President Bush compensated with a grin wide enough for both of them. Grant's office was modern and expensive and confidently masculine.

“You know Mr. Richmond?” I asked.

“We've met a few times. I haven't seen him in years, but he knew my father and Dad always spoke highly of him.” Before taking over Hawk River from his father twelve years earlier, Joseph Grant had been a Navy SEAL and he still looked fit. Lean and tanned, he was in his early fifties but I'd have probably guessed midforties. His dark brown hair showed just a little silver at the temples. He said, “And Joan was one of the finest people I've ever known. We were all very sorry to see her go.”

For a second I thought Grant was referring to her death, but of course he wasn't. I said, “Mr. Richmond told me she was an excellent accountant.”

“That too. It was a shame to lose her.”

“Did she leave on good terms?”

“It's always a little awkward when someone quits. We pay well and try to make our employees feel valued, and there's a temptation to see it as a criticism.”

I took a look around the office. “I'm sure you pay very well.” He could take that as a veiled reference to Tim Dellitt's offer, if he'd sent Dellitt. And if not, the comment was innocuous enough.

Grant let out a very small smile. “We believe in sharing the wealth. But Joan did the right thing by leaving.”

“Why?”

“Her issues had nothing to do with how she was treated as an employee—they were much bigger than that—and we really couldn't have done anything to make her happy, had she stayed. It's unfortunate. But as our head of payroll, Joan not only cut checks to our men, she also oversaw the disbursement of death benefits to their families. She took it very badly when there were no WMD in Iraq. She was skeptical about the war from the beginning, I think, and that really hit her hard. She felt our men were dying for nothing.”

“How did you feel?”

“We're a for-profit corporation. Our men die for money.” Grant finally let out a full smile. “Does that sound cold to you?”

“It sure doesn't sound like a line to toss out at your next press conference,” I said.

Grant laughed. “That's very good. Mind if I use that?”

“Be my guest,” I said. “I got a thousand of 'em.”

“Seriously though…”

“Seriously? Yeah, it sounds a little cold,” I said. “But honest.”

“It is honest. But it's only half the story. We make money, and I'm not ashamed of that. More importantly, we support our men and women in uniform and help further American interests around the world. I take great pride in what we do. We really provide a public service.”

Most active-duty military personnel—the real soldiers—didn't share Grant's sunny assessment of Hawk River's public service, but
saying so would do me no good. So I said, “How about the other PMCs?” just to see if he'd jump on it.

He did.

“Let me stop you right there, Mr. Dudgeon. Hawk River is a private
security
corporation, not a private
military
corporation. We protect equipment, facilities, and VIPs. We never fire first and, when attacked, we only fight until our VIP is off-the-
X
, until the threat has ended. Despite the sexy image in the press, we're basically security guards…albeit very well-armed and exceptionally well-trained security guards.”

“Yeah, mercenary sounds way sexier than security guard,” I said without attitude.

“You got that right. We are not mercenaries but you know how the press is—after all, you used to be one of them,” said Grant, telling me that he'd been briefed on my background. “Anyway, the distinction is essential but was not sufficient for Joan, and she couldn't in good conscience continue to work here. I disagreed with her, but I respected her decision to leave and wished her well. I didn't see her again after she left, but I'd like to think we parted as friends.”

“And what about Steven Zhang?” I said.

“What about him?”

“Did you part as friends?”

Grant laughed easily. He was a pro. “I don't have a lot of contact with people working below the level of
department head
. I'd like to be friends with everybody here but there are only so many hours in the day.”

I waited a few seconds, but Grant didn't expand upon his answer. Clearly I would have to tell some of what I knew but I wanted to avoid setting off alarm bells in Grant's head.

I said, “Steven Zhang worked under Joan, left here about a month before she quit. Worked for her again at HM Nichols and eventually killed her.”

Grant offered an indulgent smile, “What can I tell you about him?”

“Mr. Richmond wants to have a better understanding of why his
daughter died, so any insight you can give me about her killer would be helpful.”

Grant leaned back in his chair and thought about it. After an uncomfortable thirty seconds, he sat forward and said, “From what I read in the papers, Steven Zhang went crazy. That's why Joan died. I'm afraid I don't have any insight into his particular mental illness.”

“I understand. I'm not asking you for a medical opinion, just any recollection you may have of the man.”

The office door opened behind me. Joseph Grant's head turned slightly and nodded, as if controlled by servos. “Blake. Join us.”

An Aryan-looking man dropped a thin file folder on the edge of Grant's desk and squeezed himself into the chair next to me. His eyes were set too close together, like he'd been designed to attack a single goal undistracted by peripheral concerns. Like anything coming from the periphery would just bounce off of him.

He said, “Blake Sten,” and held out his hand and I gave him mine and he made me wish I hadn't. He stopped short of breaking metacarpals but it took some effort not to say
Ouch.

Grant said, “Blake is our vice president of corporate security.”

It was a title perfect for a company thug, and Sten fit the profile. Bald by choice and muscled in a way that made me doubt he'd pass a urine test, he was an impressive sight. A puckered burn scar covered the left side of his face and neck. He looked angry about it.

“Desert Storm, '91,” said Blake Sten, in answer to the unasked question in my mind.

“Blake pulled four men from a burning Humvee,” added Grant. “Earned a Bronze Star.”

“Should've been silver,” said Blake Sten, “but great soldiers don't make good politicians and I'd pissed off the wrong major.”

“Well, thanks for your service,” I said, just to be saying something.

Joseph Grant said, “A man in my position cannot, and in fact should not, know the details of everything that happens during day-to-day
operations. We terminated Steven Zhang's contract early—fired him, essentially—but Blake will have to brief you on the details.”

He stood and held out his hand and I shook it.

“Thanks very much for your time, Mr. Grant.”

“It was a pleasure meeting you,” he lied. “Good luck with your case.”

 

We stood side by side in the wood-paneled elevator. Blake Sten pushed the Lobby button and said, “Let's do this outside. I want a smoke.” As we descended, he tapped the file folder absently against his leg, with no discernible sense of rhythm.

The doors opened and we passed through an airy glass lobby, which was dominated by a giant Hawk River logo set into the vast marble floor. A black silhouette of a hawk, with three wavy lines (red, white, and blue) beneath, in the middle of a shield. It was nothing if not literal.

Next to the visitor parking lot, there were a few picnic tables on the lawn. We stopped and sat. In the afternoon sun, Sten's burn scar looked even more impressive. He was wearing a white shirt and blue tie but no jacket, and as he reached for the cigarettes in his shirt pocket, his bicep flexed and strained against the tight sleeve and a tattoo of the Hawk River logo showed through the thin white cotton.

Sten got the cigarette going, snapped the lid of his brass Zippo shut, and said, “Steven Zhang was a traitor and I fired him for cause.” He blew smoke out his nostrils, flipped the lighter open again, spun the wheel and watched the flame dance in the breeze, then snapped it shut again. “I'm a poker player. I play the 5/10 tables at Honest Abe's. You know the place?”

“Not intimately,” I said. Honest Abe's was one of the newer riverboat casinos that were popping up all over the state.

“But you know of it.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Okay, well I was playing there a year ago and I saw Steven Zhang
at the blackjack tables. It was pure chance that we were in the place at the same time. I usually only play on weekends, but just happened to be there on a Thursday. Zhang didn't see me. He was focused on his game, betting $10 a hand and losing. After a while he upped his bets to $25, chasing his losses, losing even more.” Sten took a drag on his smoke. “Later, he went to one of the ATMs and took $500 out using a credit card. Lost that, too. He looked like a problem gambler to me. And that's a security risk.” Sten went through the
flip-spin-snap
routine with the Zippo again. “Anybody gets deep enough in debt, becomes vulnerable to outside influence, right?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Right. So I put a guy on him, kept him under surveillance. I mean, he was working for Joan on the payroll computers—he had access to every employee's Social Security number, home address, bank account numbers for those who take direct deposit. You know, he could sell all that.”
Flip-spin-snap
went the Zippo.

“Sure,” I said.

“Right. So my guy follows him and he visits the casino once or twice a week, always losing.” Sten pulled an eight-by-ten photograph from the file folder and turned it toward me. “And then this.”

In the photograph Steven Zhang sat in a Caribou coffeehouse, drinking coffee with another Chinese man. Zhang was dressed casually, the other man in a suit.

I said, “You fired Steven Zhang for drinking coffee?”

Sten laughed smoke through his nose. “Funny. The other man is Jia Lun, a television reporter from Hong Kong, on semipermanent assignment to Chicago. Been here three years, reporting on politics, the financial markets, big business.”
Flip-spin-snap.
“But that's just his cover. He's a case officer for China's Ministry of State Security.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding. We picked up audio on their conversation, had it translated. Zhang was trying to sell our employee records; Jia Lun wasn't interested. He wanted Zhang to access our deployment records instead.”

“Jesus. Could Zhang do that?”

“He'd have to hack through a few layers of passwords and I'm not sure he was that talented. But I wasn't gonna wait to find out.”
Flip-spin-snap.
“I fired his ass and passed everything to the FBI.”

“Why didn't the FBI set up a sting?”

“I'm sure they would have. That's why I fired Zhang first, before approaching them. We've got a business to run here, and business is very brisk these days. We don't have time to do the FBI's job for them.”

Public service. Clearly, public service was Hawk River's
raison d'être.

Blake Sten's cell phone rang and he flipped it open and said, “Yes…right. Okay, I guess you're done…. He's got what? No, I don't want it. Break it. And leave it there.” He closed the phone. “Sorry about that.” He put his cigarette butt down in the grass and ground it under his heel. “Now I've just shared some sensitive information with you. And I don't mind if you pass it along to Joan's father. Isaac Richmond has our trust. But I'm asking you to be discreet with it.”
Flip-spin-snap.
“None of it is a secret, as far as Hawk River is concerned—in fact, I think it shows the strength of our internal security. But our
biggest client
doesn't want to bring public attention to the fact that the Chinese government is interested in our deployment records.”

“That's understandable,” I said. “What happened with the FBI's investigation of Zhang?”

“No idea,” said Sten. “Once I passed it on to them, it was out of my hair. Zhang was not a threat to us anymore, so I moved on.”
Flip-spin-snap.
“I sincerely hope that, once you pass all this to Mr. Richmond, he can move on, too.”

It sounded like a warning but I decided not to notice. I smiled. “I hope so, too.” Sten nodded, did the Zippo dance again. I said, “Your lighter fluid bills must be astronomical.”

“You ever been burned?” He rubbed the closed Zippo against the puckered skin on his face.

“Not seriously.”

“Most people haven't. I've been stabbed, shot, fragged, and burned.
And I'll tell ya, burned is the worst.”
Flip-spin.
But no
snap
. Sten watched the flame burn, said, “Fire is the most powerful weapon there is, bar none. Know why?”

“No.”

“Because it scares people the most.”

“If your yardstick is what scares people the most, then public speaking is the most powerful weapon there is,” I said.

Snap.
Sten looked at me, laughed through his nose again. “Funny.” He stood and put the lighter in his pocket. We walked to my car and shook hands and this time he took it easy on me. I opened the door and got in, rolled down the window, and turned the ignition over.

“Nice wheels,” said Sten.

“Thanks.”

“Cubs fan, huh?” He lit a new cigarette. “Your car, white with blue stripes. Cubs colors. Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks,” he added.