Michael Harvey - We All Fall Down

Donnie Quin’s dad had been a Chicago cop. His dad’s dad had been a Chicago cop. The family knew how the city worked, who to take care of, and how to get things done. Because that’s what it was all about in Chicago. Take care of the people who count and fill your pockets with whatever else you could grab every chance you got. Donnie ran his squad car down Halsted and took a left on Randolph. Twenty years ago, the five-block stretch had been full of fish factories and produce trucks. Then the restaurant developers came in-guys with juice downtown-and the lights all turned green. Code violations and licensing issues disappeared; zoning variances, rubber-stamped. Property that wasn’t for sale changed hands for a song. And the building began. Permits for whatever you might need flew through City Hall like the proverbial crap through a fat, greedy, happy goose. ’Cuz that’s what City Hall was: a fat, greedy, happy goose, taking in soft money at one end and cranking patronage deals out the other. Donnie smiled. Beautiful fucking thing.

He rolled his car to a stop in front of the first restaurant, a sushi place that charged thirty dollars for a wooden plate with five chunks of fish on it. It was just past six in the morning and still dark. Donnie flashed his lights. Thirty seconds later, a small Hispanic man in a red valet coat bundled himself up and came out of the restaurant. Donnie cracked his window, and the valet shoved an envelope through.

“For all six.” The valet gestured to the sushi place and five other joints strung down the block. “This weekend and next, too.”

Donnie adjusted his belly over his belt and weighed the package in his hand.

“Next week, too?”

“ Si, next week, too.” The valet nodded.

“How do you know how much you’re gonna do next week?”

The valet stamped his feet. “We know.”

“We’ll see.” Donnie rolled up his window and hit the gas. The valet jumped back into the street. In his rearview mirror, Donnie saw the little spic give him the finger and run for warmth. The cop loved it. Hatred, mistrust, and plain old fucking greed. Kept everyone on their toes.

Donnie stuffed the envelope inside his jacket. The restaurants paid for the privilege of parking their customers’ cars illegally on the side streets around Randolph. If they didn’t pay, Donnie and his pals pulled out the ticket books. And made sure it hurt. The skim was done on the honor system. Well, sort of. The valet companies gave the cops a count of how many cars they moved each weekend. If the cops thought the count was short-or just felt like bumping up their take-out came the ticket books again. If that didn’t work, there were always traffic stops, not to mention a DUI, to top off a customer’s night on the town. Donnie felt again for the envelope’s bulk inside his jacket. He didn’t like the idea of payment in advance. Well, actually he did like that idea, but it complicated things. The cop shook his shoulders, craned his neck, and felt his heart oscillate in its layers of fat. Donnie coughed to get the thing back in rhythm and wondered, not for the first time, if Joe Six-Pack realized how stressful it was to be a cop on the beat.

We met in a conference room on the third floor of the Epstein Science Center at the University of Chicago. I looked out a window as I waited and thought about another science lab. Another early morning. My best friend, Nicole Andrews, throat cut, eyes drowning in blood, my name on her lips as she died in my arms. That was four years ago. At the time, it felt like the end of days. Now I looked up at the man walking through the door and wondered if it might only have been a dress rehearsal.

“Kelly, thanks for coming in.”

Matthew Danielson sat down, parked his Homeland Security briefcase on the table, and snapped it open. I tried to hold my breath, but the stench of matters essential to national security crept up my nostrils and fuzzed my brain.

“When was the last time we spoke?” Danielson said.

“You know when we talked. It was a month ago, at my apartment.”

“That’s right. Two days before Agent Lawson was found shot to death. You two were close, no?”

Katherine Lawson had worked as an FBI agent. She’d also murdered a friend of mine. Lawson’s body was found in a tunnel on the Blue Line with three bullets in it.

“If you’ve got a point,” I said, “why don’t we just get to it.”

Danielson rolled his mouth in a painful attempt at a smile. Then he reached into his case, took out a pistol sealed in plastic, and slid it across the table.

“It’s a twenty-two, unregistered. Been fired twice.”

I looked at the gun and back up to Danielson.

“So?”

“It’s the gun that killed Lawson. Hasn’t been examined yet, but, take it from me, it has your prints on it.”

“Are you saying I killed her?”

Danielson took out a flat envelope and pushed it across the table. Again, I didn’t touch it.

“Three photos, time-stamped from the morning Lawson was murdered. Two of them show you exiting and leaving the subway by a CTA access door, less than a mile from where Lawson was murdered. The third shows you getting into your car, parked three blocks away.”

“So you killed her,” I said.

“Not sure a jury would agree, but that’s an interesting take on the evidence.”

“I met Lawson in the subway that morning, and I shot her. With a thirty-eight, in the leg. But you already know that. You have the gun that killed her. Which means you, or one of your flunkies, had to be the shooter.”

“We’re going to be joined in a moment by a woman. She’s one of the foremost experts in the world on the genetic engineering of bioweapons, as well as bioforensics. She’s going to need some help this morning, and you’re going to give it to her. You’re going to do this to the best of your ability and without sharing this information with anyone outside of our working group. If you refuse, I’ll take you into custody and have you charged with the murder of a federal agent before noon.”

“You told me on the phone there was a possible situation in the subway. It has to do with the lightbulbs, doesn’t it? They were loaded with anthrax, and they fell.”

“You’ll get the details once we come to an understanding.”

“Lawson knew about the bulbs. Is that why she was killed?”

Danielson put the gun and envelope back in his briefcase. “Do I bring in the scientist, or do we pull out the bracelets and head downtown?”

I floated a smile. “Bring her in.”

If Danielson was surprised, he didn’t show it. Instead, he snapped his briefcase shut and left the room. For a moment, I was left alone with my decision, which hadn’t really been much of one at all.

Donnie Quin swung off Randolph’s restaurant row, cruised east on Washington, then south on Clinton. He looped past the Blue Line stop, under the highway, and headed north again on Jefferson. Three blocks later, he pulled over. There was a homeless man draped over the curb, facedown, near an overpass. Usually Donnie would keep driving, but this guy was lying in the street. Less than a half mile from Old Saint Pat’s, no less. Donnie shoved the envelope he’d gotten from the valet into his glove box, grabbed his flashlight, and walked across the street. The wind was raw, its greedy fingers tearing at his jacket.

“Hey.” Donnie nudged the bum with his nightstick. Nothing. Donnie ran his flashlight up and down the block. Not a soul in sight. He bent over the bum again.

“Hey, asshole.” This time Donnie put his size eleven and a half boots to good use in the man’s ribs. Still, the bum didn’t move. Fuck. The last time Donnie actually squatted was seventy pounds ago, and the kick in the ribs already had him winded. So the cop took his time, finally managing to take a knee beside the bum and roll him over. His face was fish-belly white, a thin tracing of blue around the lips. Donnie took off a glove and felt for a pulse. The bum was dead, which wasn’t the worst news in the world. Alive meant ambulances and follow-up interviews and all that bullshit. Dead meant a ride to the morgue, a couple of forms, and done. Where bums were concerned, dead was definitely better.