Michael Harvey - The Chicago Way

The holding cell downtown was a rectangle pit about twenty feet by ten. It had a bench running down one wall, ending with a hole in the floor that I believed was once a toilet. There were seven other men in the cell. Three of them were cuffed to iron rings bolted into the wall. I took that as a bad sign and gave them some room. The other four spread out across the length of the cell. On my left, a white guy with an iron eagle tattooed on his forehead picked green paint off the wall and ate it. On my right, a black guy in Diana Ross drag explained to no one in particular why eating paint was a bad thing. Then he took out a tube of lipstick and began to reapply. I was thinking about asking for a single cell when three-hundred-plus pounds of correctional officer walked into my life.

“Kelly, come with me.”

The guard’s badge identified him as Albert Nyack. I preferred to think of him as Al. He opened the cage and led me down a hallway to a small windowless room. A room where cops asked questions and, one way or another, usually got answers. Al undid my cuffs and told me to sit down.

“O’Leary wants to see you.”

O’Leary was Gerald O’Leary, a former cop and the reason I no longer carried a shield. For the last quarter century, O’Leary played the part of Cook County district attorney. The consummate Chicago pol, O’Leary could usually be found in one of two places: either in front of the camera for the ten o’clock news or with his head stuck halfway up the ass of the man who ruled all he could see. The honorable mayor of Chicago, John J. Wilson.

“Wait here,” Al warned and plodded away, twirling a set of keys in his left paw.

Half a cigarette later, O’Leary walked in. I hadn’t seen him in person since the day I signed my agreement. He didn’t look any different, mid-sixties with a full white mane, straight teeth, clear eyes, and the kind of large square head and empty smile that were perfect for television. He loved looking you straight on and shaking your hand. A couple of years back he began holding your forearm while he shook. It was an old Bill Clinton trick, put to good use in the mirrored hallways of Chicago politics.

“Michael Kelly. Been a while. Let’s take you upstairs and have a little chat.”

In a matter of moments I was cuffed again, out, and walking with my newest and bestest buddy. We took an elevator up, a carpeted hallway down, and into a conference room. I said nothing. O’Leary hummed a tune I couldn’t quite make out. We sat down. An officer undid my shackles. O’Leary read a file and continued to hum.

“ ‘War Pigs’ by Black Sabbath, right?”

The district attorney looked up at me.

“What’s that, Michael?”

“You’re humming ‘War Pigs’ by Black Sabbath. Ozzy Osbourne. Am I right?”

O’Leary smiled. He also stopped humming.

“We have a problem here.”

“Do we?”

“I knew John Gibbons. Good officer. Good man.”

O’Leary’s voice had taken on the somber, heavy cadence he used at only the best sorts of press conferences.

“I appreciate the intonation,” I said. “I really do. I mean, that sort of intonation takes a lot of effort. It’s an art, really. Something you typically save for Irish funerals and executions. Am I wrong?”

The DA just kept on keeping on.

“Michael. We have a former officer murdered and another up to his neck in it. Not a happy day for anyone.”

I shifted in my chair. It was padded and more comfortable than the plastic one at Town Hall. Still, I would have preferred the white room and Masters across the table. A kick in the head aside, the waters here felt deeper, the current swift, with a big fish in the water.

“I already asked for a lawyer once,” I said. “You want to talk charges, let’s at least make it official.”

“I was hoping we could avoid that.”

“You were?”

“Yes. I don’t believe this print to be a legitimate piece of evidence.”

“You mean it might not be an admissible piece of evidence, don’t you, Counselor?”

O’Leary gave one of those nods I always expected from Charles Dickens and the Old Bailey.

“Bear with me, Michael. If it’s a frame, and I’m not saying it is, the question is, why?”

Two years ago, the man across the table had planted a bag of cocaine in my car, charged me with possession, and dropped the case only when I agreed to leave the force. Now we were old friends, discussing yet another frame with my picture inside. I proceeded with all due caution.

“If it’s a frame, it’s a pretty poor one. Even you can see that. In fact, especially you, Mr. District Attorney. As to the why, I intend to find out.”

O’Leary smiled and gave me the dead eye. I could see a bit of hunger at the corners of his mouth, and the cold chill of yesterday crawled up my back. Then it was gone, replaced by an even more depressing prospect called tomorrow.

“For the moment we’ll hold off on any formal charges,” he said.

“Until a bigger headline comes along?”

The district attorney shrugged. As if he had done all he could and some people just couldn’t be helped.

“You didn’t work with me last time, Michael. Look what happened. This time, you might want to think about it. Have a good day.”

O’Leary exited stage left. A moment later, the door opened again. My only friend in the Cook County DA’s office floated through, wrapped in a cloud of smoke. In his left hand, Bennett Davis carried a cigar that smelled good enough to eat.

“I thought you couldn’t smoke those things in government buildings,” I said.

The assistant DA sat down in the chair his boss had just vacated, crossed his legs, glanced at the Macanudo, and gave me his most patronizing look.

“Wrong. You can’t smoke them in government buildings. I, on the other hand, constitute another matter entirely.”

Bennett Davis was a different kind of guy. Short and round, balding since he was twelve, and perpetually in love with women he could never have, Bennett went to the DA’s office right out of Northwestern and never looked back. He was O’Leary’s major hitter, taking all the big cases out of Chicago and rarely coming up short. My friend could go private any time he wanted, jump into a mid-six figures salary with any Chicago firm. Instead he made $65K a year and bachelored it in an $1,000-a-month flat in Lincoln Square. All for the rush of deciding, as Bennett once put it, who goes to jail and who walks. Like I said, a different kind of guy.

“So, Kelly, what the hell are we doing here?”

“Ask your boss,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bennett had been kept out of the loop when O’Leary decided to go after me. To this day, the assistant DA carried a measure of guilt he didn’t deserve.

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just that I know who I’ve killed and, as luck would have it, John Gibbons doesn’t happen to be among that number.”

Bennett dropped his cigar into a cut-glass ashtray he had brought with him. Then he tapped his index finger lightly against the conference table. I noticed a brown leather watch on his right wrist. A cheap Timex. Bennett caught my glance, shot his cuffs, and the Timex disappeared.

“How did you know Gibbons?” Bennett said.

“My partner on the force a while back. He showed up yesterday, out of the blue. Asked for some help on an old case. Never got any further than that.”

“Gibbons testified at a couple of my trials,” Bennett said. “Good cop. The evidence is shit, Michael. Print could be any one of a thousand guys.”

“No kidding.”

Bennett shrugged, picked up his cold cigar, examined, then relit it.

“O’Leary is just feeling his oats. Looking to make a splash. You know how it is.”