Michael Harvey - The Third Rail

“And?”

“Black Hil s Gold, 308 Winchester. Just like your boy said.”

“This guy wasn’t our shooter.”

“How do you figure?”

“He knew we were sitting in a Starbucks, which means he was close by, watching.”

“So?”

“Who’s gonna shoot up an L train, then hang around the scene and cal me for kicks?”

“Then he’s our accomplice?” Rodriguez said. I shrugged as we came up on a line of traffic stopped at a red light.

“One more thing.” Rodriguez looked over. “They found a second body downtown.”

“On the train?”

The detective shook his head. “Building on Lake. Building manager got his throat cut. Apartment looks over the tracks.”

“So the manager maybe barges in on our shooter?”

“Or the manager was helping him and then became expendable. Either way, we’l process it. Pul any rental records.”

“Our guy isn’t that stupid.”

“Real y?” Rodriguez lifted an eyebrow. “If you got al the answers, let me ask you this: Why are these geniuses cal ing you?”

“Not a clue.”

“Might want to do some figuring on that before we sit down with the feds. You can start with how these guys got your cel phone number. And end with why they didn’t drop the hammer on you this morning.”

“Shit.”

“Exactly. Let’s get moving here.”

Rodriguez flicked on his siren and flashers. The sea of cars parted, and the detective hit the gas.

Nelson rumbled his shopping cart to a stop at the corner of Superior and State and looked up at the white stone of Holy Name Cathedral. The morning had gone as wel as he could have hoped. Robles had gotten their attention. Kel y was involved. Now it was time to make them understand why.

Nelson stashed his cart in an al ey and trudged up the steps. With the push of a finger, ten tons’ worth of bronze door swung open, and he slipped inside. The 12:30 mass was just starting. The regular crowd was there. Maybe fifty people, mostly folks from work who used their lunch hour to pray. Nelson took a seat in the back and looked them over. The standard hypocrites, getting on their knees and groveling when they needed something: a clean X-ray from the doctor, a phone cal from an old girlfriend, a pregnancy test with an empty round window. When you got right down to it, there were very few atheists in the foxholes of life. It was something the Catholic church had understood for centuries and counted on. To his right, Nelson saw a bench ful of three bums like himself, except they were already asleep. The church tolerated them as long as they didn’t smel too bad or snore too loud. The service usual y ran twenty-five minutes, tops. The priest was an old one. No surprise there. He was talking about running through your own personal Rolodex, checking off the people you’ve met, places you’ve been, and things you’ve done.

“How does your Rolodex look?” the sanctimonious bastard croaked, staring down his saintly nose at the great unwashed. “Does it bear up under scrutiny? Do you have the right balance in your life? The right priorities? Or are you al owing your time on earth to be bought and sold, bartered away in the minutiae of the everyday, the pursuit of the material and your own comfort? Indeed.”

The priest let the last flourish hang as he shook his long head from side to side and tucked his hands inside embroidered robes. I’l show you some fucking priorities, Nelson thought and let his eyes wander up to the ceiling. Five galeri hung there, red hats with wide brims, representing five dead Chicago cardinals. Five princes of the church, more hypocrites presiding over an empire that was as rotten as it was rich, as calculating as it was pretentious.

Nelson felt inside an inner pocket for the smal brown bottle. It had a cork stopper in it. He stood up and wandered into the rear vestibule. A Chicago cop was there, loaded down with a radio, nightstick, and gun and sweating in a bul etproof vest. He considered Nelson’s filth and turned back toward the service. Nelson shuffled over to the stone cistern that held the holy water and waited. Communion was cal ed, and the cop went forward to get his wafer. Nelson dipped dirty fingers in the bowl and blessed himself with the magic water. Then he slipped the brown bottle from his jacket and tipped its contents into the bowl.

Communion was over and people were starting to wander to the back of the church. Nelson stepped away from the bowl and watched a mother approach, young child in tow. Nelson smiled. The woman recoiled. Stil, she was Catholic and soldiered on, pretending to like the bum and nodding in his direction. She touched her fingers to the water and blessed herself. The young girl beside Mom held her arms up. Before the woman could react, Nelson lifted the girl so she was level with the cistern. He smiled again at the mother as her child sprinkled the water across forehead and cheeks. The mother reached for the child, hustling away once she had the girl back in her arms. Nelson watched them go. Then he crouched in a corner as the rest of the congregation filed out. A couple dozen took holy water. After a bit, the church was empty. Nelson walked outside and shuffled his way to the back of the building. He found his shopping cart, gritted his teeth, and began to push into the wind along State Street.

Rodriguez and I walked into FBI headquarters at a little after noon. A young Asian woman in a blue suit took our names and guns in exchange for plastic IDs. Then she walked us through a door and down a hal way, where she passed us off to a young white man in a brown suit. He put us in a smal office and told us someone would be with us shortly. An hour later, the door to the office opened. On the other side was a young black man in a gray suit. He took us another twenty feet to a conference room, fil ed with al sorts of men and women, clad in al sorts of suits. They al stopped talking as we walked in, and everyone seemed exceptional y good at not smiling.

“This is Detective Vince Rodriguez and, I suspect, Michael Kel y?” The man speaking carried his sixty or so years alarmingly wel. His face was largely unlined, his eyes clear, his hair an efficient salt-and-pepper flattop. He cloaked broad shoulders in a custom-cut three-button suit and walked with the natural grace of an athlete. On his left wrist, he wore a gold watch; on his left hand, a wedding ring. He shot his cuffs as he approached, flashing a set of FBI logos disguised as cuff links.

“Dick Rudolph. Deputy director of the FBI.”

I shook the deputy director’s hand and glanced toward Rodriguez, wondering how and why the FBI’s second-in-command happened to be in Chicago, and how and why he didn’t have better things to do than talk to me. Rudolph seemed to read my mind.

“I’m in Chicago on some unrelated business, was scheduled to fly out this afternoon, when this thing jumped up. Sit down, Mr. Kel y.”

I took a seat beside Rodriguez. Rudolph staked out the head of the table and did his best to make me think I was at least the second-mostimportant guy in the room.

“As you might imagine,” Rudolph said, “the nature of these crimes has sparked concern along several different lines, including possible terrorist acts. The Bureau has stepped in to help, and I decided to sit in on today’s meeting.”

Rudolph turned to the rest of the table. “Mr. Kel y is a former Chicago police officer. Now, a private investigator. As you al know, he was on the Southport L platform this morning and confronted our suspect in an al ey. He also took the cal from our suspect. You have copies of his statement and details on the cal. We’ve asked Mr. Kel y to come in and see if he could be of any further help.”