Michael Harvey - We All Fall Down

I was about to respond when Holy Name’s front doors swung open again and men with dark glasses and earpieces came out. The VP wasn’t far behind, Wilson hanging on his elbow. They stopped just inside the entrance to talk to the cardinal.

“How’s our mayor doing?” Rodriguez said.

“BBC News led their broadcast last night with a feature on his lifestyle.”

“I didn’t know he had a lifestyle.”

Rissman popped out of the clutter. Wilson nodded as his chief of staff leaned close and whispered. The mayor was staring at me now. A hint of something tugged at his lips. I slid a pair of sunglasses off the top of my head and felt immediately better behind them.

“What’s gonna happen with him?” Rodriguez said, nodding toward Rissman. I’d filled Rodriguez in on the mayor’s aide and his plans to undo his boss.

“Don’t know.”

“He’s been at everything the mayor’s attended,” Rodriguez said. “At least everything I’ve seen.”

“You don’t think Wilson knows what he’s doing?”

“None better. I just wonder how.”

“It’s never simple,” I said, just as Wilson’s limo pulled up. The mayor offered a final good-bye to the VP and the cardinal. Then he tucked into the back, alone, and left. My eyes tracked Rissman as he disappeared up Superior Street. I felt my feet following. Rodriguez tugged at my arm.

“Where you going?”

I didn’t know. But I went anyway. Rodriguez went with me. We walked east on Superior and turned right on Wabash, just in time to see Rissman duck into an alley.

“What’s down there?” I said.

“There’s a small lot in the back. City uses it when the big shots are at the cathedral.”

Rodriguez and I drifted past the mouth of the alley. I could see the edge of the parking lot and a second alley veering off at a diagonal to the first. Black Dumpsters lined both sides of the first alley. A small dark man had his back to us, and one of the bins open.

An engine coughed and turned over. A brown sedan pulled out of the lot just as the small dark man closed the cover on the bin and rolled it across the alley. The driver came to a stop and gave a tap on his horn. The man put his hands in the air and began to wrestle with the bin. A second, larger engine roared to life.

I couldn’t speak for the driver of the sedan, but it came together for me in that moment. The moment before it happened. A dump truck laid on its horn even as it roared down the second alley, bit into the side of the sedan, and snowplowed it into the building. There was a mad, shadowy scramble in the front seat as the sedan’s driver tried to open a door that was now pinned against a brick wall. The driver of the truck revved his engine, front wheels gaining purchase, climbing up the side of the sedan and crashing through its roof. Rodriguez ran down the alley. I stayed where I was as the driver of the truck rocked his front wheels back and forth, crushing the roof of the sedan flat. On cue, there was a flare of sirens behind me. Three police cruisers and a fire engine- a carefully selected group, no doubt-arrived on scene within thirty seconds of the crash itself. Rodriguez raised his arms, badge in one hand, gun in the other. A cop took him to one side. The rest swarmed over the wreckage.

I walked up to the sedan. A thin river of blood mixed with oil had leaked out from under the left front wheel. I could make out a patch of human hair and Rissman’s black glasses crushed and pinned awkwardly against the steering wheel. The rest of it was broken glass, twisted steel, and flesh.

The driver of the dump truck didn’t say much. And when he did, it was in Italian. The second man I’d seen in the alley was gone. I angled over to the side of the truck. The script on the door read SILVER LINE TRUCKING.

“Look familiar?” Rodriguez had walked up behind me.

“Vinny DeLuca.”

Rodriguez kicked at a stone in his way. “He always liked to do business with the city.”

“And wanted everyone to know it.”

A shout came from the back of the sedan. A fireman rose up and vomited against the wall. The rest of them scattered. The trunk of Rissman’s car was open. I got within ten feet and reached for a handkerchief. Then I looked in. Peter Gilmore looked back. Or what was left of him. Knees tucked in under his chin. Propped up against a spare tire. Waiting, apparently, for someone to bury him.

“Is that who I think it is?” Rodriguez said.

“Yep.” I walked back down the alley to the street. Rodriguez lingered for another minute, then joined me.

“You want one?” I offered him a cigarette.

“No, thanks.”

I lit up, hoping tobacco would wash away the death smell. Rodriguez and I walked down Wabash, then turned toward the cathedral.

“You know what will happen?” Rodriguez said.

“With what?”

The detective waved a hand vaguely behind us. “Our friends back there. The guy in the trunk will miraculously transport himself to the front seat of the car, where he will have expired from injuries suffered in the crash. The driver of the dump truck will get a citation for dangerous driving, appear in court in two months, and have his case dismissed. The whole thing will be a bit of tragic irony on page three of tomorrow’s Trib. Wilson will mourn the loss of his aide. Hell, Rissman might even rate his own mention at Holy Name. Either way, the whole thing will be forgotten in a week.”

“Loose ends,” I said.

“No one ties ’em up better than Chicago.”

We came to the corner of Superior and State.

“Where you headed?” I said.

Rodriguez shrugged. “Gotta date for lunch.”

“Rita?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s all right, Vince.”

“Yeah, yeah. What about you?”

I nodded toward the stone steps and the white building above it. “Got some loose ends of my own.”

“Say one for me.” Rodriguez began to walk away. Then he stopped and turned. “I almost forgot.”

“What?”

“Rachel?”

“What about her?”

“What’s going on?”

Inside the folds of my coat was a flat package. It contained a final concession from the feds: all the paperwork on Rachel’s connections to CDA and a letter promising to bury the matter forever. I’d considered giving it to her in person but decided the mailbox might be a better option.

“Kelly?”

“Yeah?”

“You want me to talk to her?”

“Be better if we leave it, Vince.”

“For now?”

“Yeah, for now.”

The detective patted me on the shoulder and started up Superior again. I sat on Holy Name’s steps and warmed myself in the sun. A couple more cruisers flashed by. Along with an ambulance and a TV truck. I finished my smoke and ground the butt under my heel.

Inside, the cathedral felt cold and massive. I took a seat in the back. Then I got on my knees and closed my eyes. The darkness was absolute. I reached out with my hands, searching for a window to open, a ray of light to follow. But there was nothing. Just darkness. Suffocating and eternal. I sunk into it. And suffered. Knowing this was how it had to be. Until it wasn’t.

I sat in Ellen Brazile’s living room and listened to early evening traffic elbow its way past her windows.

“How’s your girl?” she said.

“I told you I don’t have one.”

“You told me it was complicated.”

I grimaced and took another sip of coffee. I’d already shared everything I knew about CDA, save for one item. She knew it. I knew it. The urn on the mantel holding her sister’s ashes probably knew it.

“I went down to see the mayor speak at one of his rallies,” she said.

“I bet that was thrilling.”

“I brought my gun.” She was curled up on the couch, dark hair pulled back from her face, long legs tucked too neatly beneath her.