Michael Harvey - The Chicago Way

The assistant DA smiled, the one they teach you in law school just before they explain the concept of treble damages.

“Here’s my advice. Lay low for a couple of weeks. Let the office get you off its radar. Maybe we make an arrest, this whole thing goes away. Capisce?”

I understood and told my friend as much. Bennett Davis headed for the door, stopped halfway, turned, and pointed at me.

“By the way, how is she?”

I was waiting for it.

“Nicole is fine.”

“Tell her I said hello.”

“You tell her yourself,” I said.

“That’s not how it works. She ask for me?”

“No, Bennett, she doesn’t ask for you. At least when I see her, which is, on average, once a year.”

Bennett frowned a bit at that.

“You see her once a year and she doesn’t ask for me?”

“No.”

“I better give her a call.”

“Do that, Bennett. But don’t hope too hard.”

“No?”

“No. She’s not your type.”

“You’re probably right.”

Bennett Davis shook his head from side to side, as if to get that fact in its proper place. Then he continued.

“They’re probably going to want a statement before we let you go.”

I shrugged.

“You should have an attorney for that, Michael.”

I gave him the number of a guy. Davis went to give him a call. After one lawyer, the day is ruined anyway.

I lied to Bennett. I see Nicole more like once a month. Usually it’s for coffee at a local shop on Broadway called Intelligentsia. For my money it’s the best joe in the city.

I got there at a little after six that evening. Typical Intelligentsia crowd. Up front, a couple of old men drinking large coffees, doing the neighborhood gossip with Gemma, a pink-haired barista and queen of the double-shot macchiato. In the back, a table of DePaul students huddled for warmth around major skim lattes and tapped away on their PowerBooks. In between, a smattering of NPR types, downing double shots of espresso and talking aloud to anyone who would listen about how much they hated George W. Bush.

At a counter along the front window was a stunning sort of woman. She had skin the color of cocoa brushed with crimson, fine-boned cheeks, and delicate, strong lines for nose, mouth, and chin. Her subtle smile took you in, filled you up, and left you contented, at peace with yourself and still thirsting for more. Her name was Nicole Andrews. She was lead DNA analyst for the Illinois state crime lab and my best friend.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said.

Nicole was drinking a large cappuccino and leafing through The New York Times. She drew her finger down the side of a page and spoke without looking up.

“How long have we known each other, Michael?”

The answer to that was simple. A lifetime. I grew up in a hard sort of Irish way. On the city’s West Side. My mother drank tea, ironed a lot of clothes, and tried to stay out of the way. My father worked three jobs and dragged home $8,500 a year, kicking and screaming. He drank enough to hover between black silence and pure rage. The former was bad, but it was the latter that kept you up at night.

My brother, Phillip, and I slept on a pullout couch in the living room. Phillip was a year older, ten years tougher, and a world wiser. At sixteen, he was caught breaking into a McDonald’s. Actually, the cops found him stuck in a venting duct on the roof. A cook heard the screams after he fired up the grill and started making Egg McMuffins. Once Phillip got inside the joint, he stuck a guy with a knife and drew down ten more years. I never saw him a lot after that. Mostly because he hung himself with his bedsheet. They cut him down from the bars of his cell on April 23, 1989.

I didn’t have any sisters, didn’t need any. I had Nicole. I met her when I was nine. She was seven. It was a hot, heavy afternoon. Late August in the city. We were playing football in the street when she made the mistake of walking by. There was an older kid there named Maxie. He was big and round, Polish and plenty tough. He’d blow his heart out with a speedball on his sixteenth birthday. I didn’t cry. Don’t know anyone who did.

Maxie hooked Nicole by the back of the shirt. Just for fun. Kicked her to the ground. As Nicole got up, he caught her flush, a hard, flat hand across the face. I remember the sound of her head bouncing off a chunk of pavement. Nicole didn’t cry, didn’t run. Just picked herself up again, tried to get away. Maxie screwed himself close, screamed in her face. It wasn’t the first time I heard the word nigger. Nor the last. But it’s the one I remember. Then Maxie reached back again, a closed fist. Nicole went straight down. This time she didn’t get up.

There was a group now, all white, all watching. I heard some snickers and felt the circle tighten as Nicole lay on the ground. They were excited. Waiting. Predatory.

I don’t really remember considering, reflecting, or even moving. I was just there, inside the circle, reaching out my hand and helping the black girl stand up. There was blood at her temple and more dripping from her nose. She seemed oblivious to it. Instead, she just looked at me, curious. More like she wanted to sit down and talk, help me with problems I couldn’t yet understand. She seemed to hold this wisdom in a child’s look, and dropped it on me like a bomb.

That’s what I remember. Me and Nicole, middle of the circle, surrounded by so much hatred and feeling none of it. That is, until Maxie crashed the party. He clubbed me with a forearm from behind and told me to fuck off. Apparently, I was ruining his fun. Even better, I was two years younger and a hell of a lot smaller.

Twenty-six years later, I know for a fact that I can fight. I’ve boxed in a ring, not as an amateur, but for money. Not a lot of money, but enough to handle most anything that might come down the street. At nine years old, however, I didn’t realize what latent talent lay in my fists. That was, until I closed them and laid into Maxie. I blackened an eye, cracked a tooth, and busted his face pretty good. Then I slipped my hands underneath his chin and felt the give, the softness of his windpipe. Once I got there, Maxie stopped struggling and started worrying. I saw the whites of his eyes, oversized in their sockets, and felt the violence and the power within. Just a little more pressure, a bit more, and it would be over. For Maxie. And for me. So easy. So simple. So right.

Seconds before I would have fractured Maxie’s windpipe, Phillip came down the street at a run and caught me with a boot across the head. I hit the ground, rolled, and got up. Smiling. It was the first time the blackness had ever thickened behind my eyes, ever misted them over. Not the last time. But the first. I was nine years old and I liked it. In time, I would learn to love it. Now, I only fear it.

After Maxie, no one in the neighborhood messed with me very much. Or Nicole. No one ever played with us too much either, but that was okay. Nicole understood me, understood the world in a way that seemed beyond time. Two and a half decades later, we were here. In a coffee shop. Talking about a murder.

“Known you a lifetime,” I said.

“Best friends?” Nicole said.

“Yes.”

“Then why does my best friend get pulled in on a homicide beef, spend half the day in jail, and not pick up the phone to call me?”

The DA’s office had finally kicked me loose at a little after noon. Such news apparently traveled well.

“You heard about that?” I said.

“Yes, Michael, I heard about that. I also knew John Gibbons. Now would you like to explain to me why the DA thinks you killed him?”

“It’s a little complicated,” I said.

“No kidding. You can start whenever.”