Michael Harvey - The Third Rail

“I used to think I shared this special bond with the victims. Felt their pain just because I felt something. Truth is, I was clueless, smiling like an idiot, trying to comfort someone about something I knew absolutely nothing about.”

“You think the women you helped feel that way?”

“If I were them, I would.”

I shook my head and joined her in looking out the window. After ten minutes or so, Rachel sighed. I ran my fingertips across her hand. She dropped her head to my shoulder, and I slipped an arm around her. She felt thin and brittle. The pup yawned and wagged her tail slowly.

“I’m sorry, Rach.”

“I know.” Her face was wet and I brushed away a tear. She swore and dabbed at her face with the back of her sleeve. “Pretty bad when you’re no longer aware you’re crying.”

“It’l get better, babe.”

“Maybe, but it won’t be the same.”

We fel back into the chasm of silence. After a while, Rachel moved to a chair across from me and leaned forward.

“I don’t know where anything goes from here,” she said.

“We’l figure it out, Rach. Day at a time.”

She held up a finger, close to my lips, but not touching. “Shh, Michael. Listen.”

I fel quiet.

“It’s not always about figuring,” she said. “And it’s not always about ‘we.’”

I felt the cold touch my heart, the lovely bruise rising with her name on it, the ache I was already pretending wasn’t there.

“That’s al right,” I said, smiling hard against the lie.

“No, it’s not, Michael. But sometimes things happen. And sometimes there’s no going back. The truth is, we just don’t fit in each other’s lives. No matter how hard I try to convince myself otherwise.”

I stared at a cracked tile on the floor. She tilted my chin up until my eyes met hers. Then she took my hand, kissed it and laid it against her cheek. That was when I felt her pity and knew it was real. And that was probably the worst thing of al. We sat that way for another minute or so. Then the doctor stepped in from the corridor and gave me the sign to wrap it up.

“I think they’re booting me out of here,” I said. Rachel tried to stand and winced.

“Careful,” I said.

“I know. Whole fucking thing’s fal ing apart on me.”

I smiled. She laughed, and that led to another spate of crying that final y subsided.

“Wil you stop by again?” she said.

“That what you want?” My voice felt dry and tight.

“A visit would be nice, yes.”

Maggie jumped up and crawled close. Rachel gathered the pup into her lap. “Al right if I keep her for a while?”

“Sure.”

Rachel traced a finger across the back of my hand. “Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for letting me in.”

She nodded and seemed suddenly tired, suddenly adrift. I tried to keep her close, but she rol ed away from me like the tide, leaving nothing between us but a bare beach, littered with the bones of a broken relationship.

I kissed her careful y and gave the pup’s ears a scratch. Then I left. Rachel turned back to her view of the lake. Maggie’s eyes fol owed me al the way to the door.

Rodriguez was sitting in a no-parking zone, sunglasses on, engine running. I slid into the passenger’s side. “How’d it go?” he said.

“About what you’d expect.”

The detective nodded and took a look in his rearview mirror. Then he wheeled away from the curb. “I’ve been up to see her a couple of times.”

“Her nurse told me. Told me it was a big help.”

“I know a little bit about this. From Nicole and everything.”

“I remember.”

Rodriguez sighed. “If you got a problem…” He glanced across the car.

“It’s okay, Vince. Anything you can do to make her better. I appreciate it.”

We drove for a while in silence. Rodriguez turned on the radio, then snapped it off. “You okay to talk a little shop?”

I looked over. “Sure.”

“Wilson cal ed me in this morning.”

“How is the mayor?”

“Happy as the proverbial pig in shit. He told me about your train crash. About Transco and CMT Holding.”

“Probably figured I’d fil you in anyway. What do you think?”

“I think our mayor owns the cardinal, lock, stock, and altar boys.”

“Nice to keep the mayor happy,” I said. “By the way, what ever happened with Alvarez?”

Rita Alvarez had gotten her exclusive. Scooped both Chicago dailies on the scene inside Cabrini and was promised an “inside look” at the task force that hunted down and kil ed Jim Doherty.

“Funny you should ask.” Rodriguez smiled lightly.

“Date tonight?”

“Dinner at the Chop House.”

I leaned back in my seat and thought about my friend and the reporter. Maybe not such a bad thing. Rodriguez hit his blinker, took a left, and pul ed up to a red light at the corner of LaSal e and Chicago. “There was something else that came up.”

A young woman was screaming at a young man at a bus stop. The man grabbed the woman’s arm. She shook him off and stalked away.

“What’s that?” I said.

The man started to fol ow the woman across Chicago Avenue and almost got hit by a bus. He stepped back onto the curb, then found a bench and lit a cigarette.

“Dispatch took an anonymous cal last night. A woman shot down in the subway.”

“Hadn’t heard about that,” I said.

“You won’t. It was Katherine Lawson. They traced the cal to her cel phone. Found her body down by the tracks where Maria Jackson was found.”

I felt my head snap around. “Her body?”

Rodriguez nodded and hit the gas as the light turned. “Shot three times with two different guns. A thirty-eight in the leg and a couple of twenty-two slugs to the head.”

“Strange.”

“Yeah. By the way, you stil got that cold thirty-eight I gave you before Cabrini?”

I could feel the heavy gaze of the homicide cop walk its way across the car.

“Probably not,” I said.

Rodriguez grunted and we drove a little more.

“When you talked to the mayor this morning,” I said, “did he tel you about Lawson?”

The detective looked over again. “You mean how she was shaking down the church?”

I nodded.

“Yeah, he mentioned it. When did you turn up that part of it?”

“Just the last day or so. I would have told you, but…” I shrugged.

“Some things I’m better off not knowing.”

“Probably. You gonna pul her case?”

Rodriguez shook his head. “Feds usual y handle it when one of their own dies.”

“Which means what?”

“Lawson was dirty. If it was Chicago PD, the whole thing would get buried. My guess is the Bureau’s no different. We’re holding the evidence, but I’m betting it never gets touched.”

“So we’re done with that?”

“Looks that way.” The detective tapped two fingers lightly against the steering wheel. “Where you headed?”

“Home.”

“Good idea.” Rodriguez turned up the radio and steered his car toward Lake Shore Drive. I didn’t say another word.

I woke to the quiet of midafternoon, thinking about Katherine Lawson. I’d left her alive in the subway. Then someone came along and decided to finish the job. I wondered who. Better yet, why.

I sat up on my couch and considered the fat canvas bag on my coffee table. I’d told the mayor’s accountant, Walter Sopak, part of Lawson’s story. The part about Lawson’s little girl. Sopak and his laptop agreed to meet me at an al — night Mexican place cal ed El Presidente on Wrightwood and Ashland. A couple bowls of chili and a chimichanga later, the accountant had cracked Lawson’s computer and emptied one of her offshore bank accounts. The bag was stuffed with Sopak’s good deeds-three-quarters of a mil ion dol ars the feds would never miss. I had an appointment with a trust officer at Chase set up for tomorrow morning. The account would be in the name of Melanie Lawson. She’d be informed of the money when she hit twenty and be able to access it a year later. The trust officer at Chase figured the account would be worth almost two mil ion by then. I wasn’t entirely convinced Chase would stil be in business, never mind turning anyone a profit, but what was a guy to do. So we’d al take a chance. I walked over to my desk and locked the money in a drawer. From a second drawer, I took out the whiskey, along with some pieces from the past. The first photo was a parting glass, my dad laid out in his only suit, waiting for them to fire up the funeral home’s oven and send him into eternity. My old man’s face had shrunk in death, col apsed into the empty shel that was his life. The red eyes I knew as a nine-year-old were thankful y sewn shut. The fists that broke my mom’s jaw in five places were gone as wel, replaced by a pair of pale hands clutching a set of rosary beads for al they were worth. I toasted the old man with a bit of Macal an. Good luck with that.