“I thought you quit drinking,” Paul says when I get him on the phone.
“I paused,” I say. “You still willing to buy me a beer?”
“I think I owe you one, after last night.”
“Meet me at Goose Island.”
I’m at the front end of the bar, sipping a pleasantly bitter, much-needed beer, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s getting dark outside, and I anticipate Paul’s arrival with every person that comes down the sidewalk. I hope Mason isn’t following closely behind.
It’s been almost an hour. I thought Paul would rush right over here. I knew this was a long shot; I hope it wasn’t a complete mistake.
If Paul is on the up-and-up, no one will find me here. Goose Island isn’t a place anyone would look. None of the cops hang out here because it’s so close to the station. Nothing against the beer; I used to make an occasional stop for a draft down at their old brewery off Clybourn until they started selling the stuff in bottles. I guess the novelty wore off when I knew I could buy a six-pack at Osco.
Wrigleyville isn’t my kind of neighborhood anyway. This is one of our beats, and we all spend plenty of time here during night games around the corner at Wrigley. Even when there’s no baseball, there’s usually some drunken argument between aging frat boys over whose alma mater has a better sports program. One bar down the street caters to Michigan State fans. We’ve wasted a lot of time busting up fights just to listen to one burly Spartan or another whine about a fat lip he probably deserved. What kind of a dumb ass would throw punches over a college sports team?
The clientele here is pretty tame in comparison. The place opened a few years ago and nearly caused a community upheaval. The owners had to promise they wouldn’t invite the sort of patrons who’d pee in their neighbors’ yards. They advertise this place as a family establishment, and now the boys over on Halsted probably make more racket. There are a few places across the street that get rowdy without fail; but here, for some reason, it’s always manageable.
That’s why I picked the place. It’s manageable.
I see Paul coming down the sidewalk dressed like an off-duty cop: everything is ironed and orderly, but he has absolutely no semblance of style. Still, he walks with an air of innocence I wish I still had. He obviously never killed anybody.
I move my stool and turn on the charm when he comes in and sits down next to me.
“Hi there,” I say, keeping an eye on the front door to see if anyone else will be joining us.
“I hear you’ve got half the city looking for you. How come I’m the lucky one?” he asks.
“Because you’re the only one who’d consider yourself lucky.”
“What are you drinking?” he asks.
“Honker’s,” I tell him.
“Two Honker’s,” he says to the bartender.
I’d better pace myself.
The first round consists of small talk and getting-to-know-you-type stuff.
“You live around here?” I ask, since he arrived without gloves or a hat or a cab.
“I live right around the block,” he tells me. “Isn’t that why you wanted to meet here? Tell the truth. I know your MO. Have you been following me?”
“Just because I stalked my boyfriend doesn’t mean I do it to everyone,” I say. I try to laugh about it.
“I’m not worried,” he says. “I’ve never had a problem with good-looking women being interested in me.”
“Who says I’m interested? I’m here for the beer.”
I think I’m doing a pretty good job of loosening him up. But if he’s anything like Mason, he’s doing the same to me. I don’t want to play games, so I figure I’ll just get to the point and ask him if he’s working for Mason. I’m trying to find the best way to word it when Paul says, “So, I’ll ask a stupid question. Do you like it when people call you Smack? I mean, I get it, Sam-Mack . . .”
“Actually, it didn’t start because of my name,” I tell him. A smile surprises the rest of my face. “Fred made it up. We arrested this guy for public nuisance. He was totally bat-shit, delusional, and at one point he just started freaking out—using all his strength to try to get away, screaming about how we were robots or machines or something. He came at me swinging, and my gut reaction was to slap him. The guy just stopped; he just stopped and started crying like a six-year-old. Fred lost it, he was laughing so hard. There I am on the street with these two men, and I’m trying to get them both to stop crying. ‘Smack!’ Fred kept saying, tears streaming down his face. ‘You just smacked him!’ he said. ‘Look out, Rodney King!’ He told the guys the story. It stuck.”
“You think it’s funny?” Paul asks.
“It’s better than being called ‘bitch-slap.’ ”
Paul laughs.
“So there it is. My persona demystified. Impressed?”
“Absolutely.”
“You gonna buy me another beer?” I ask. I don’t have all night, and the more I can get him to drink, the more I think I can get him to talk.
“If you’ll demystify one more thing,” he says. “Is Mason officially out of the running?”
I answer with another smile and then I flag the bartender. “Another round.” Then I turn to Paul and say, “Try to keep up.”
Over the next round I try the apology angle. I’m hoping Paul will feel guilty and fess up about Mason if I do. Or at least maybe he’ll slip up.
“I feel bad for being such a bitch to you all the time,” I say.
“I’m sorry I had to arrest you,” Paul says. “You looked like you had quite a night ahead of you until Wade and I interrupted.”
“Yeah, trying to kill my boyfriend’s wife just didn’t do it for me. I was planning to spice up my Monday night with some random assaults. In high heels.”
He tries to laugh about that, but he’s having trouble. He’s probably picturing me in that outfit. Or, he’s working for Mason and I’m making him uncomfortable.
“I feel like I should explain myself, at least about Mason and me,” I say.
“You don’t have to,” he says. “I know it takes two. I see the way he looks at you. It’s not fair, you know. He already has one good woman. Why should he get two?”
He threw me there. And he’s looking at me, looking for an acknowledgment with those big brown hopeful eyes. It’s about the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a year. I grab my bag and fish through it for cigarettes. I realize I don’t even know how to take a perfectly good compliment.
Paul hands me a matchbook from the bar, resigned to my silence. I suddenly don’t feel like smoking.
“Have you ever been in love?” I ask him, Miss Shoe’s words echoing in mine. And I thought she had problems.
Paul picks up his beer. “Once.” He pauses a moment, toasting whoever it was, before he empties the glass. He can’t be working for Mason. I can see his heart right there on his sleeve.
“I thought I was in love,” I say. I want to spill my guts, but I don’t continue. Instead, we both stare ahead at the beer taps in silence. Even though I don’t know the first thing about him, just sitting here together is nice. Sitting here, Paul reminds me there are honest moments.
Of course he could be fooling me completely. These are exactly the circumstances that made me fall in love with Mason: a real conversation, a vulnerable moment, a few beers. I have to stay focused. This is not a date.
“I think I’m going to get out of town for a while. Lick my wounds,” I say, like I’m talking about the scabs on my knees.
“Where?”
“Florida,” I say, to see if I get a reaction, but I don’t. I tilt my head back to finish my beer.
Paul says, “Florida’s great. You ever been to Naples?”
I keep my mouth shut so I don’t spit out my beer and shake my head no. I swallow and slide off my stool.
“I’ll be back.” I head for the bathroom before he asks me anything else.
I stand in a bathroom stall and smoke. I know I should just be honest and ask Paul about Mason. But he could be here for information, just like me.
An image of Mason pops into my head. “Baby,” he says, his warm grin tainted with pity, “you hit your head.” He’d always state the obvious and then get me to tell him whatever he wanted to know. Building trust is the foolproof way to get answers. I flush my smoke and decide to press on with Paul. I haven’t spent this much time with him for nothing.
Paul and two full beers are waiting at the bar. I wish myself luck.
“So,” I say, sitting down with a new smile, “you know more than you’ll ever want to about me, unless you want to talk about my good habits. What about you? Where you from?”
“Iowa.”
“Wanted to be a cop. My dad was a cop in Des Moines.”
“Why didn’t you stay in Iowa?”
“When you grow up in a place where you know everybody, it’s hard to become someone they don’t expect.” He’s got that right.
“How’d you end up in the district?” I ask.
“Dumb luck, I guess.”
His answers are so generic I probably couldn’t figure out what he had for lunch.
“You like it here?” I ask.
“I like it enough. I’m getting tired of being everybody’s assistant, that’s for sure.”
“When I was a rookie,” I tell him, “I fought my way out of that real quick. We had a guy, this junkie, who went ballistic when they uncuffed him. They were outside the station, letting him go. No one expected it. The guy was bouncing around, punching people, and really out of control. I was in the parking lot, getting Fred’s jacket that he left in the car—I think just so I’d have to go get it—when this all happened. I came back to the scene and everyone’s standing around this guy, doing nothing—even Fred—like the guy was a mountain lion or something. I walked over and took him down with one move. Nobody ever asked me to get him coffee after that.”
“What did you do? Smack him?”
“You’re hilarious. I’m a green belt. Kung fu.”
“You think you could take me down?” Paul asks. From the look on his face, I think he’d be willing to let me try.
“It depends on how you attack me,” I explain. “I learned a lot of specific techniques in training.”
“Give me one.”
“Okay . . . the overhead club.”
“A club. A common weapon on these mean streets.” Amused, Paul watches me swivel around on my stool.
“Say someone comes at you from straight on, with a club—a two-by-four, a beer bottle, whatever. You can deflect their strength by taking a step back, blocking the weapon with a moving hand to absorb the blow, and turning your torso at an angle that corresponds to the attacker’s height.”
“You’re doing math? You’re counting on an attacker coming at you with a certain weapon from a certain angle—what’s your weapon, a compass? You think that works? You’re no bigger than my sister, and she’s in high school. I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
“You want me to demonstrate?” I ask.
“Maybe later,” he says. But he makes it sound like that means later tonight.
I think I’m getting somewhere.
After four beers each and a lot of bullshitting, Paul finally gets up his nerve.
“Part of me wants to believe you’re enjoying my company. The rest of me thinks you want to get me drunk and take advantage of me.”
“What if it’s both?” I ask, hoping I’m believable. If our whole conversation has been a game, we’re tied. And he’s good.
“One more beer and you probably could jujitsu me,” he says.
“It’s Shao-Lin,” I correct him.
“Right,” he says. He pushes both our empty glasses forward and nods at the bartender. “So you ready to head home and change into your killer outfit?” he says.
“Not yet.”
Paul looks pleased.
We end up at Paul’s apartment, an upstairs studio in Wrigleyville that is, in fact, right around the corner. He turns on a lamp next to an oversized bacheloresque black leather couch. The first thing I take note of is a duffel bag full of police gear. It’s on the floor next to a bench press with at least three hundred pounds on the bar. I also take note of the radiator below the window.
“You ready for the overhead club?” I ask.
“Sure, get me buzzed and then challenge me,” he says, as he gets two Miller Lites from his fridge.
“No, really, I’m serious. I want to show you my moves. Come here, and come at me like you have a club in your right hand, over your head.”
Paul thinks it’s funny, so after he uncaps the beers, he comes at me with one.
I tackle him, I go straight for his gut, and we knock over the lamp. I straddle him in the pitch black and hear the beer spill all over the hardwood.
“Shit,” he gripes. “My hip.”
“Don’t be such a baby,” I say. “I told you I could take you down.” I pull up his shirt to find the flesh of his midsection. I bite it playfully, and he scoots away, toward the window, like I hoped.
“Oh, you’re dangerous!” he says, laughing a little anxiously.
I quit biting and start kissing, changing the mood entirely, but I’m trying to get closer to the weight bench and I’m feeling around for his duffel bag with my free hand.
“Oh,” he says more softly. He pulls me up and kisses me. It’s weird. He’s tipsy, and clumsy, but passionate enough. I think about how inherently wrong this is, messing around with a rookie. But I also remember being in his position, and I was just as willing, so I keep kissing him.
I distract him further by undoing his belt. He starts to help me with it as I locate the handcuffs in his bag and open them.
“Yeah?” he asks, a little riled up by the sound.
“Yeah,” I say, and close one of the cuffs around his right wrist.
“They do this in karate?” he asks.
“Kung fu,” I correct him.
Then I pull his arm across his body and close the other cuff around the leg of the radiator.
“Wait. No,” he says. “Sam?”
I climb off him, pick up the duffel bag, and take it out of his reach. Game over.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“You have another light in here?” I ask.
“On the back wall.”
I flip the switch and Paul is stuck on the floor, his pants half off, and his sense of humor gone.
“Very funny. Come on.”
I light a cigarette and pull up a kitchen chair in front of him. I spin the cuff keys around my finger.
“Give me the key,” he says.
“Tell me what you know,” I say.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know damn well what I’m talking about. Fred was killed to cover up something. Now his wife’s gone. Susan Imes is in the hospital, Bruce Zahner and Marko Trovic are dead. Mason is playing the victim even though he’s behind it all, running some drug deal. So fill me in. What the hell are you guys doing?”
“I’ve been working this case for almost a year,” he says. “I’m not going to blow it now.”
I try to act like I knew he was going to say that, but I had no idea. The cuff keys flip off my finger and across the room.
“We would have had Mason a long time ago if it weren’t for you. You messed up Mason’s plan, and you messed up ours.”
“You’re IA?” I still can’t believe it.
“Damn right I am. You think I’d be spending all my off hours with Wade if I wasn’t trying to get something from him?”
“You’re with O’Connor,” I say. A bunch of little incidents that should have clued me in are adding up in my head, totaling one big “duh.”
“So why haven’t you nailed Mason?” I ask, hoping for more details than I got from O’Connor’s version. “We’re running out of time here, Paul. I need to know.”
“Then ask O’Connor.”
“Good idea. Where’s your phone? I’ll call him up and invite him over here. I’m sure he’d love to see this.” I reach over and tug at Paul’s pants. “Come on. We can show O’Connor your hard-on.”
He hangs his head.
“Paul. Let’s hear it.” I kick his shoe.
“Fred was working with Mason,” he finally says. “They’d been extorting money from dealers for months, keeping them on the streets for a price. We finally convinced Fred to go state’s once he got the idea that he was about to be passed over on Mason’s list.”
“So?”
“So Fred tells us about some heavy cash changing hands, and we plan to bust it up.”
“Fred was trying to do the right thing,” I say.
“Fred was trying to save his own ass. Didn’t help with that wife of his pressing him to stay in with Mason.”
“Mason set Fred up?”
“That’s what we were trying to prove. Not much we could do, though, when Fred wound up dead and our only witness was Mason’s girlfriend, who couldn’t remember anything except seeing a dead guy. You can see our dilemma.”
“I’m a woman before I’m a cop, is that it?”
“You’re Mason’s woman. That’s a little different.”
“What about the vest?” I ask. “Fred was wearing a vest. How come no one bothered to look into that?”
“The vest Fred checked out had a different serial number on it than the one that was submitted to Evidence. They’re telling us it’s a clerical error.”
I remember the details of that night more clearly, now that my perception isn’t skewed by anything but my own stupidity. I heard shots. Fred said he was hit. Why weren’t there any bullets recovered besides mine?
“What about the autopsy? They could have found bruising where the first bullet hit—”
“—And called them ancillary wounds. Come on, Sam, you’re going to tell me the details of the case make any difference when your boyfriend is the investigator? Where have you been?”
In love. Fuck.
O’Connor was right. Still, I want to know: “Why didn’t your guys pull me in after Fred was killed? Why did you leave me in the dark?”
“Like I said, you’re Mason’s woman. We were waiting for you to make another move.”
“So you thought I killed Fred, and that I did it for Mason?” I ask.
“No one thought you killed Fred. But we did think . . . well, actually it was O’Connor who thought that after Fred died and Mason gave you that nasty bump, you’d be bound to slip up . . . if you were involved.”
“Mason . . .” gave me the bump? “Mason . . .” was the one at that house? Mason killed Fred?
“Yep,” Paul says, knowing what I can’t say.
Now the details become terribly clear. Crawling to Fred. Fred whispering, “You don’t know what he can do . . .” I didn’t know. Mason was there.
Firing. Blood in my eyes. I couldn’t see. Fred knew. Mason was there.
“Are you okay?” Paul asks, his voice bringing me back to the room.
“Mason was there,” I say. “He loaded another bullet into my gun and killed Fred.”
“We haven’t even been able to prove he was at the scene until well after the incident. His wife gave him an alibi.”
“But she’s in the hospital. She’ll tell the truth now. She has to.”
“We thought so,” he says. “We were wrong. She’s not saying a word. And whoever’s been involved since isn’t volunteering any information, either. I guess fixing a crime scene isn’t exactly a résumé builder.”
“Where’s your phone?” I ask again. I get up and find a cordless on its station on the kitchen counter. I put my cigarette out in the sink.
“Who are you calling?” he asks. “Don’t call O’Connor. Please, I told you everything . . .”
I ignore him and slip out the front door into the hallway. I punch *67 to block Mason’s caller ID.
“It’s Sam,” I say when he answers.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
“To what, get out of jail? You set me up.” I want him to know I’m not playing dumb.
“That’s a matter of perspective, really.” Smug fuck. “I’ll meet you at your place.”
“How do you know I don’t have the entire Chicago PD there waiting for you?” I ask. I want him to think I’m willing to listen.
“Because I know you, Sam. And you know me. You know I have an explanation for all this. And you know I love you.”
I want him to think I believe him. I wish I did believe him.
“I’m leaving now,” he says. “Sam?”
“I’ll be there.” I hang up.
I go back inside and put the phone back on its charger.
“Oh, shit, you just called Mason, didn’t you. Oh, man, I’m in trouble.” He squirms around and ends up sitting in the spilled beer.
I cross the room and take Paul’s Bulldog .44 from his duffel bag. I wish I had more reassurance than a loaded gun.
“No, Sam, come on. Think about this,” he says.
I stuff the gun in my boot. He knows I’ve thought about it. He knows I’m leaving. I go to the door.
“Sam, please,” he pleads.
I turn around, because I have one more question. “Have you been hitting on me for the same reason you’re hanging around Wade? To get closer to Mason?”
“That wasn’t part of my assignment,” Paul says.
“Good. If I make it out of this alive, I just might go out with you again. It was fun.”
“Will you let me out of these? Please?”
“They’re your handcuffs; you’ll figure it out.”
I leave Paul there to fend for himself. IA has been following two safe steps behind, and they won’t catch up before I go face-to-face with Mason.