As they drove back through the Loop, Kelson said, ‘Poor woman.’
Rodman gave him a long, flat look. ‘Next time you want to sympathize with someone like that, take away her gun first – before she shoots it.’
‘She missed,’ Kelson said. ‘Should we try Henrico?’
‘Nah, she’ll warn Toselli we know about him. Same as the lake house.’
‘You think it’s run and hide for him now?’
‘Where’s he going to run?’
‘He’s got to have somewhere.’
‘He seems more like the kind who fights if he gets a chance,’ Rodman said.
‘Does he go to Stevens’s office? Back to your apartment? Nancy’s house?’
‘Or anywhere he thinks he can sneak up behind you,’ Rodman said.
‘Let’s check Stevens.’
But as they drove toward the real-estate office, Rodman’s phone rang again.
Francisca was on the other end. ‘She’s got a fever,’ she said. ‘And she’s talking crazy about that boy Christian again. She thinks he’s here with her.’
‘What does Marty say?’
‘I woke him, but he says she isn’t his problem. If she tries to kill me, I should scream and he’ll help. If she’s just dying, I should let him sleep.’
‘Is she dying?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I think so.’
‘I’ll be right there,’ he said, and hung up. Then he told Kelson to turn around and go to Rush Medical. He dialed another number, and soon he was persuading Cindi to steal more cephalexin and meet them at the emergency entrance. When he hung up again, he said, ‘That girlfriend of yours is a problem.’
‘Don’t call her my girlfriend,’ Kelson said.
‘Sure as hell isn’t mine,’ Rodman said.
Forty minutes later, Kelson dropped Rodman and Cindi at their Bronzeville apartment. Then he headed for the Stevens Group building alone. Along the way, he debated Toselli’s virtues and failings.
‘He put his lips on my bloody mouth to resuscitate me.’
‘He framed me and he’s trying to kill me.’
‘He’s a good family man. Of sorts.’
‘He’s a killer.’
‘He loved Inez.’
‘He pumps addicts full of stolen drugs.’
‘He rushes into a bust in front of everyone else. He jumps from a second-story window and rolls to his feet.’
‘He uses his strength to hurt people.’
Kelson recalled the Frisbee and beer Toselli brought him at the rehab center. He recalled the grin on Toselli’s face when Sue Ellen first called him Uncle Greg. He recalled Toselli teasing her, saying, I shoot little girls. Pow! Pow! He recalled Sue Ellen screaming with laughter. He recalled Raima Minhas’s death grimace.
As he pulled to the curb at the Stevens Group building and climbed out of his car, his debate got so heated that he didn’t see the man sitting in the silver SUV in front of him. He also didn’t see the big, black automatic on the man’s lap. But when the man raised the gun and aimed it through an open window, he saw it.
Kelson’s brain cross-wired, and before he could shout Toselli’s name, Toselli touched the trigger and bullets burst from the muzzle.
Kelson jerked away and dropped to the pavement. He rolled on the concrete and pulled his KelTec from his belt. As Toselli opened his door and climbed out – leading with the automatic – Kelson squeezed two shots.
The rounds sank into the vinyl inside the door.
Toselli dove back into the SUV. He started the engine and the SUV jumped from the curb. It went ten feet and stopped. He shifted into reverse and punched the gas.
The SUV flew back toward Kelson.
Kelson rolled – too slow, it seemed, for the spitting tires. He squeezed the trigger again and again, shooting high into the sky, then into the SUV undercarriage. The skidding tires, the shots from the KelTec, the surrounding traffic – everything went silent in his ears. He was all reflex, his senses as dead as they would be if the SUV had run over his neck.
But he rolled clear. He aimed his pistol at the exterior rearview mirror, with Toselli’s face staring at him. He squeezed the trigger, and the mirror exploded.
Then Toselli shifted again and the SUV shot away.
‘Huh,’ Kelson said.
He scrambled to his feet and ran to his car.