What a dumbass move. Did this guy really think no one would notice a cockroach sandwich?
I stared out the window of the cab, watching the Chicago cityscape flash by, torn between revulsion and stunned confusion over how customers of The Chicken Shack hadn’t run away in droves. The local chain was six small joints on the South and West Sides that specialized in fried bird, and its owner, Orlando Gaetano, was scheduled to appear this morning at the Cook County Circuit Court. Allegedly, Gaetano was too cheap to put in proper hygiene protocols to keep the crunchy critters at bay but somehow found enough cash to stuff an envelope for the safety inspector every quarter.
It didn’t matter how fat those envelopes were, eventually, roaches dropping from the ceiling into your mashed potatoes and gravy was something you couldn’t brush aside as a one-off. In a normal city, the health inspector would have shut this food-poisoning incubator down long ago, but in Chicago, greased palms were not only the first line of defense but the shield of authenticity.
I’d been covering the latest legal maneuvers in the case for Link-Media ever since a whistleblower inside the Department of Public Health spilled the beans. Over the past ten years, the chain had seen numerous small fines thrown their way. From where I stood, those fines seemed to be nothing more than a slap on the wrist now and then to keep the obviousness of the scheme hidden, but Gaetano’s attempts at making himself out to be a reformed business owner never lasted beyond a payroll cycle or two, according to the employee rumor mill.
It was an incredibly shortsighted business decision, as the odds were high that eventually word was going to get out and customers would start voting with their wallets, or a serious pathogen would be traced back to the joint if it caused a major illness or a death. And those were far more painful legal and financial issues than small fines. Apparently, this guy was a bigger gambler than I was. And someone inside had taken it upon himself to right the wrong—or mete out some payback, perhaps.
Repeated safety violations were nothing to sneeze at, but the real story, in my mind, wasn’t the conditions at the restaurant but the bribery. How had he pulled that off? Granted, the residents of Chicago needed to know that spending their hard-earned cash at The Chicken Shack might come with a stomach pump or explosive diarrhea, and I was happy to splash that all over Link-Media’s home page, but bribery of a city official was a notch up on the big-story pyramid.
If the outcome was simply another wrist slap, I knew that three months after this ordeal, Gaetano would re-open under new management with a new name and try to pull this shit again. If I could forever associate him with the nickname Cockroach King, it would taint anything else the man tried to do in the food service industry, regardless of new signage, and hopefully prevent a few cases of listeria in the process.
The health inspector was the weak link in this story. If he was taking payola from one loser, he was likely taking dough from others as well. So as I neared the courthouse, the questions in my mind were: Who else was playing the game? Were there any other inspectors on the take, and did it go any higher in the department? In other words, what did this guy’s supervisor know or not know? And was he involved?
I jumped out of the taxi at Washington and Dearborn and headed into Daley Plaza, where a gaggle of attorneys and plaintiffs stood in small groups chatting, scrolling their phones, or just getting fresh air before hours spent indoors waiting for their turn at bat. The skies were clear and the temperature perfect. September in Chicago was about as good as it got, and I looked longingly at an open bench.
As I strolled toward the building, not wanting to rush the weather experience, I caught sight of my dear friend Cai about fifteen feet ahead of me involved in an animated conversation on her cell.
A legal bulldog working for one of Chicago’s big five firms, she could spar with the best of them, and she knew the Daley Center as well as she knew her own apartment.
“Hey, are you out here avoiding a client?”
She turned at the sound of my voice and smiled. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a clip, and she wore one of her many “You’re damn right I’m an attorney!” tailored suits.
“Hi! That call was with someone I wish I could avoid,” she said. “He’s a massive pain in the ass. One of those clients who thinks because he has been a CEO and watched a lot of legal dramas on TV, he knows what the hell he’s talking about. I would dump him in a heartbeat if he weren’t a neighbor of one of the partners.”
“In other words, you’re going to be bitchy until the damn case is done.”
“Bitchy? Me? Never.” She gave me a disarming smile.
I loved Cai’s utter intolerance of fools. Although always the consummate professional, Cai knocked back any man predisposed to thinking Asian women were the meek, retiring types. Inevitably there would be a “come to Jesus” moment the minute they tried to manipulate her. Her sweet smile could quickly morph into fangs when some guy was being a jerk.
“It just means I’m going to need to spend a lot of time with you. Someone has to remind me that the world can be rational. Are you free tonight? A night on the terrace at Nico sounds divine. Or is Michael monopolizing your time this evening?”
“I’m all yours. Meet you there at seven?”
“Works for me. But I’m starting to think Michael and I should work out some shared-custody arrangement. Or will I have to ask my secretary to schedule you a month out, as I’m forced to with my married friends?”
She narrowed her eyes and gave me her infamous attorney glare. The one she used liberally when she thought a defendant was full of shit.
I had been dating Detective Michael Hewitt for just over a year, and Cai had started dropping little annoyance bombs into our conversations now that there were additional demands on my time. I knew she liked the guy, but these jabs were coming far too often not to be noticed. My relationship with Michael was complicated enough—our jobs, our romantic history—and tension with Cai over it wasn’t a pleasant thought.
“Shouldn’t you be heading inside?” I asked. “I assume you’re not standing in Daley Plaza just to enjoy the weather.”
“In theory. Today is a role-reversal day. I’m testifying in this really messy divorce.” She let out an exasperated sigh and shot her eyes toward the nearest cluster of folks out of caution. “I handle some of the legal work for the wife’s business, and her jackass of a husband, who also happens to be an attorney, is questioning her business valuation in their divorce. He wants to grill the forensic accountant, the bookkeeper, the office manager. And he wants to grill me. Basically, I think he’s another one of those dipshits who wants to bankrupt her through legal fees just for spite.”
“Should I assume the husband is representing himself?”
“But of course.” She laughed. “Big surprise, right? The arrogant ones are always the worst.”
“There is nothing pleasant about divorce, but when the plaintiff and the attorney are the same, as the saying goes, someone has a fool for a client,” I added.
“Anyway, our judge has been delayed, so I’m hanging outside waiting for the update, or to be told I can take my toys and go home. What about you?”
“I’m scoping out a preliminary hearing. That guy I told you about, the one who owns the chicken joint and has been paying off the health inspector. Not that I wanted to think about insects for breakfast, but I think the inspector might be a bigger story, so I’m going to suffer through a discussion on rodent and insect droppings to see if I can get any read on whether there are others involved.”
“Don’t let it ruin your appetite for dinner,” she said, shifting her bag higher on her shoulder and glancing at her phone.
The sound of a car laying on its horn, long and loud, made us both jump, and we turned in unison toward the blare. Just fifteen feet away, a black Escalade with tinted windows was blocking the entrance to the alley that led to staff parking. Probably some foolish suburban limo driver being lazy as he waited to pick up his client. The Lexus sedan behind him was none too happy, hitting his horn again.
Clearly, the driver of the SUV didn’t understand downtown Chicago etiquette or he would have inched forward just enough to let the sedan pass without abandoning the prime double-park spot. When the Escalade made no effort to move, the Lexus hit his horn hard and didn’t let up.
“I think we might be in for a little road rage if this SUV doesn’t get his ass out of that spot in the next half second,” Cai said, amused. Weather and bad driving were the topics of at least fifty percent of all Chicago conversations, with local sports or politics filling the rest.
The loud screech of the horn was now drawing the annoyed stares of others in the Plaza as the sound reverberated off the glass and steel high-rises surrounding us. A light beep here and there was par for the course in downtown living, but pushing the horn and holding it for longer than five seconds wasn’t part of our social contract.
“Is the driver even in the Escalade, or did he park and run?” I said.
Just then the door to the Lexis opened, and a tall thin man exited the vehicle and began an angry march toward the SUV. His jaw was set, and I could tell by the look on his face that he had a few choice words in mind. If it were a few degrees cooler, steam would have been forming on his wire-rimmed glasses.
“Looks like my guy has finally arrived,” Cai said. “That’s Bradford Reynolds, the judge in my client's case. Good. If he can get this jerk to let him into the parking garage, I should be ready to roll in a few minutes.”
Abruptly, the front doors of the SUV swung open, and two men dressed all in black, rubber Halloween masks over their faces and guns drawn, approached the judge. Cai and I stared in stunned silence as Reynolds stopped in the street, arms raised, a look of terror on his face.
“Go ahead, take the car. Keys are inside. I don’t have any cash on me. Just take the car,” he said, his voice holding just a hint of waver.
The men stared each other down. People around us were beginning to notice and scuttle away. My eyes locked on the guns, I slowly slipped my hand into the outer pocket of my bag and wrapped my finger around the plastic case of my phone. Shielding my activity as much as I could, I dialed 911 and raised my phone while Cai grabbed my arm and started pulling me back.
“What’s your emergency?” said the voice on the other end of the line.
A shot rang out before I could respond, then another, and another, and Reynolds slumped to the ground. Screams filled the air around us, and my heart drummed in my chest. I watched, frozen in place, as the shooter jumped back into his SUV and his partner into the Lexus, speeding off, tires squealing as Cai and I stared at the blood pooling around the man on the ground.
Cai and I ran to the judge as the vehicles pulled away, crouching down at the victim’s side. I grabbed a cardigan out of my bag and stuffed it futilely into the gaping wound in the man’s chest, then updated the 911 operator while Cai checked for a pulse. She shook her head while we stared at each other in silent disbelief.
A small group of people began to hover around us. “Is he dead?” “Did you see that?” “Right here in Daley fucking Plaza!” The voices of shock. Already a police siren wailed in the distance.
“Good riddance.”
I turned toward the icy voice behind me that had uttered the hate-filled comment, seeing a middle-aged white man with gray wavy hair and an ill-fitting suit buttoned over his enormous stomach. He stared at the judge dead on the ground, his face in a snarl, while another guy beside him nodded in agreement.
“The son of a bitch deserves what he got,” he continued. “His kind don’t deserve to make judgment.”