Michael Harvey - The Third Rail

“Feds busting your bal s, Kel y?”

“A little bit, yeah.”

The mayor pointed his fork my way. “How the fuck is it you’re in the middle of this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Coincidence, huh?”

I shrugged. “Could be.”

“You’re a liar.” Wilson cut off another piece of his appetizer and smiled as he chewed. “But that’s okay. Everyone lies.”

“You think so?”

“Sure. In a way, al the bul shit lies restore my faith in human nature.”

“That’s comforting.”

“For what it’s worth, the feds are trying hard to believe you. The female agent, what’s her name?”

“Lawson. Katherine Lawson.”

“Right, Lawson. She thinks you have a connection. But she’s not sure what it is. Anyway, she wants to keep you close. Keep an eye on you. You gonna eat the rest of that?”

I shook my head. The mayor shoveled my saganaki onto his empty plate and continued talking.

“I come here two, three times a week. Sometimes for lunch. Sometimes just to get the fuck away. Listen to these crazy bastards run around, yel

‘Oopah,’ and al that shit. Glass of wine. Good fish here. You like fish?”

“Sure.”

“Me, too. This is a steak town and I love it. But a good piece of fish is tough to beat. Anyway, the Bureau wants you around, but they don’t want you in their way.”

“I’m sure you can understand why.”

“I certainly can. You’re an asshole. Simple as that. Don’t give a fuck who you fuck. Or why. Can’t be reasoned with, et cetera, et cetera. Don’t get me started. I already got some indigestion working. You want dinner?”

“No thanks, Your Honor.”

“Yeah, I don’t real y feel like eating with you, either. So, here it is. The feds are going to use you as their personal piss boy. And you’re not going to like that. Not one bit. Am I right?”

“When you put it that way…”

“Meanwhile, I got some asshole shooting people on the CTA. No rhyme. No reason. Just for the hel of it. And where the fuck does that stop?”

As he spoke, a flush of crimson rose in the mayor’s cheeks, a darker thread of purple pooling in the cracks of his fractured complexion.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Me neither.” The mayor gestured around the empty dining room. “Look at this place. Two nights ago I was in here, and the joint was packed. A week from now, who knows? People get afraid to come out of their house.”

“Or their hotel room.”

“Exactly. You know how much tourist money this kind of thing could cost us?” Wilson took a sip of water and cracked hard on the ice in his mouth.

“What do you want from me, Mr. Mayor?”

Wilson chewed up his ice and swung his head around the empty room. “Stand up for a second.”

I did. The mayor walked behind me and executed a pretty impressive pat down.

“Don’t think you’re anything special. These days I check my wife for a wire before we get into bed at night.”

“Nice life.”

“Yeah, sit down.” I did. Wilson leaned forward and let his jaw hang open so I could see his back teeth. “I need you to work this case for me. Under the radar. No official ties to the city.”

“Just you and me?”

“And Rodriguez. He’l be my eyes and ears with the feds, who, for my money, are gonna get nothing done with their task force.”

“You don’t feel good about the Bureau?”

Wilson waved a cold hand in my face. “Fuck them. Bunch of pencil pushers sitting around in meetings trying to figure out the quickest way to get their ass back to Washington. Meanwhile, this guy is out popping people. My people. In my city. Our city, for Chrissakes.”

“I know.”

“So get on it. If you got an angle to play, go ahead and play it. You don’t want to tel me your connection to al of this, fine. I’l provide cover for you. Rodriguez wil provide whatever information the task force digs up.”

“What do you mean by ‘cover,’ Your Honor?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’d like to hear it.”

Wilson leaned in farther, his voice crawling across the table on its bel y. “You want to hear it, Kel y? Fine. Find this guy. Guys. Whatever. Put a bag over his head and drop him down a fucking hole. No arrest. No trial. No questions asked.”

“You can’t find a cop to do that for you?”

“This isn’t a Chicago operation.”

“And task forces can get complicated.”

“That’s right. Let me ask you a question. Can you find this guy?”

“Maybe.”

“You have an angle, you cocksucker.”

“Maybe.”

“And the feds are fucking useless, right?”

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that. The feds are gonna use their methods, like they always do. Sometimes they work…”

“And usual y they don’t. If you don’t want to drop someone down a hole, that’s not a problem. Just get a line on him and we’re good. I’d offer your badge back, but you’re too much of an asshole to accept it, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, then. We’l figure out something else for you. Just find this guy. Now get out of here so I can order dinner.”

Sometimes the less said, the better. Every instinct told me this was one of those times. So I left the mayor and his offer floating in the Grecian darkness.

Rodriguez was waiting in the car outside Santorini. “How’d it go?” he said and turned over the engine. “How do you think?”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m gonna work it. You already knew that. So did Wilson.”

Rodriguez pul ed into a line of early evening headlights streaming north on Halsted. “Let me guess, on your own terms?”

I shrugged. “What are the feds focusing on?”

“About what you’d expect. Physical evidence, witness statements. They’re developing an offender profile, gonna run al their data through NCIC, VICAP, and every other database they can think of.”

“What about the rifle?”

“Preliminary from Bal istics established it as the sniper kil. No prints. They’re running a trace right now.”

“And the apartment?”

“Should have some information in the morning. By the way, the morning should be a lot of fun. City’s putting uniforms on al the CTA platforms. Plainclothes on board the buses.”

“That’s a lot of manpower.”

“It gets better. The Bureau wants to put its own teams up on the rooftops. From Evanston to Ninety-fifth. North, south, east, and west. Along every mile of L track.”

“Snipers?”

“Whole nine yards. Balaclava, painted faces, rifles with scopes, al that crap.”

“Maybe they’l just scare the shit out of these guys.”

“Or the half mil ion people who use the L every day. Wilson didn’t like it. Said he wasn’t going to turn his city into some unholy fucking vision of Baghdad.”

“He’l be changing his tune if another body turns up,” I said.

Rodriguez grunted. We slipped across the tip of Goose Island, clattered over Clybourn Avenue, and took a left onto Lincoln.

“What’s the story with Lawson?” I said.

Rodriguez chuckled. “Thought you might get to that. They cal her Sister Katherine.”

“Why’s that?”

“You remember Father Mark?”

“Doesn’t ring a bel.”

“Father Mark was the pastor at St. Cecilia’s over on the Southwest Side. Took the parish for a little more than a mil ion dol ars over five years.”

“Heartwarming.”

“Yeah, he was shorting the col ection money, using parish credit cards, everything. Lawson was the one who got onto him. Spent six months hip deep in church records looking for loose cash. Turns out this guy had a second home in California and three Beemers. When Lawson grabbed him, he was planning to sel the rectory and buy himself a boat.”