Dan O'Shea - Penance

“Only ideology I got is power,” said Hurley.

“Exactly. Whatever it is you want to do, you have to have power first.”

“So you want me to slot you into Junior’s place?”

“Given recent events, we would have the assurance of each other’s fealty.”

“You get a ticket to the big show, and I get a pet senator?”

“Within reason.”

Hurley walked back to the credenza, pulled a bottle of Jameson’s from the cabinet, poured some into a couple of highball glasses, handed one to Clarke.

“Never work. No secret around town how you and me get along. I put you up, you’d look like a poodle on a leash.”

“We can get around that.”

Hurley put a hand up, shushing Clarke. He walked back to the window for a minute, sipping his whiskey, then turned back.

“Here’s what we do. You declare. You’re the independent taking up Junior’s flag. Press’ll eat that shit up. They love to give it to me in the chops anyway. All those hippie loonies, they’ll flock to you. Meanwhile, I pick out some schmuck, run him in the primary. My side takes a dive, we get some of the vote out your way under the table. You’re the underdog who takes down the machine. Comes the general election, I got no choice but to back the party side.”

Clarke thought for a moment. It was brilliant. But it could also be a ploy. Could be a way for Hurley to buy his silence long enough that Clarke couldn’t ever come forward, then cut him off at the knees, have his guy actually win, send Clarke packing. It could be, but it didn’t feel that way. There’s always a moment when you have to take that leap.

“Smart play. I’ll give it a few days, lay low, grieving, get through the funeral. But you announce your candidate first — somebody out of the machine. Then I’m outraged. I have to step forward in Junior’s memory.”

“Right way to play it,” said Hurley, nodding. “Just remember one thing here. We got each other by the balls. I’ve been at this a long time, had mine twisted before. You try to cross me, I’ll rip yours off.”

“Yes, sir,” said Clarke.

Hurley let out a soft snort.

“What?” Clarke said.

“The assurance of each other’s fealty? You wanna make it in this town, you better stop talking like that. Your Ivy League crap don’t carry no weight around here.”

After Clarke left, Hurley sat in the office with Riley.

“I’ve been thinking about who we want handling it with the cops,” said Riley. “You know that Declan Lynch guy?”

“Up on the northwest side? Does some precinct work and whatnot? Rusty Lynch’s brother?”

“Yeah. Rusty can help keep him in line. Also, once he reads the tea leaves, I think he’ll smell an opportunity in it.”

“Good. Call the commissioner.”

“Zeke Fisher called while you were talking to the kid. He’s done over there. Wants you to know he’s sorry, but it’s going to be ugly. What he had to work with, only way he could go. On the plus side, looks like a chance to clean up the rest of your nigger problem. He also wants to know does he need to do anything about Clarke.”

CHAPTER 5 — KANKAKEE, ILLINOIS

Present Day

Ishmael Leviticus Fisher lay awake in the anonymous hotel on the frontage road off I-57. He needed to sleep, but the moment kept coming back to him. His wife, the quick smile and short wave out the driver’s window of the Blazer as it crunched through the yellowed leaves, down past the short stone wall, past the chestnut tree, angling to the right as it backed into the street.

Andy’s face in the back window, the delicate skin around the blues eyes crinkled, that smile that seemed to split his head like a melon full of teeth. Amanda in the car seat past him, just a year old, just a hint of Amanda through the reflection of the white house and the black shutters and the fragile blue of the autumn sky.

Then the white-yellow flash of the Semtex, like diamond lava, and a sound like all the bones in the world snapping at once, the driver’s side of the Blazer pitching up, part of the bottom showing, and then the gas tank exploding, a richer, redder fire with a sound like a bass drum stretched with his own flesh and beaten with his own heart.

Picking himself up and running to the burning hulk, half, half, half his son strewn into the street, his head now truly split, brains, not teeth, smiling out. And his wife, thrown out onto the lawn, blood sheeting down her face and a flap of her scalp hanging across one eye, a ragged triangle of gray plastic jutting from her abdomen, her right leg gone almost to the hip, the scarlet, arterial blood arcing out in desperate spurts. Her clawing at the plastic as he reached her, clawing at the invasion into her already crowded womb. And her remaining eye meeting his eyes just once, and her saying “the baby,” and her hands falling away from her stomach as that one good eye rolled back and the blood from her leg slowed, no longer propelled by a beating heart.

Fisher closed his eyes, forced the memory away. He got out of bed, pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and went out into the night to run.

When John Lynch got to his desk, he had a message to call McCord at the ME’s office. Got what he usually got, McCord eating something while he talked.

“Sorry to interrupt your breakfast, McCord.”

“Brunch, Lynch. Had breakfast couple hours ago. We can’t all keep your hours.”

“So what have you got for me?”

“You know about the cancer?”

“Priest told me. Bad?”

“Broad’s a walking tumor. Got it everywhere.”

“She in pain you think?”

“Must’ve been.”

“So I should put out an APB on that Kevorkian, huh?”

“Depends. Can he shoot?”

“So what else?”

“Definitely a descending line on the shot. Had to have some elevation. Like I was saying yesterday, bouncing off all those bones, maybe it just got kicked down, but I got a real clean entrance wound in the sternum, and the beveling on that tells me the round was headed down when it hit her. 7.62mm, so definitely a rifle round.”

“Fuck.” Lynch trying to picture the scene in his mind again. “You see anything when you were over there? Parking lot, right? Then the park. Bungalows behind that. Anything high enough?”

“Maybe the guy climbed a tree in that park, I dunno. Like I said, I just do the science. By the way, got her in the heart. Pretty much dead center. Guy’s either real lucky or real, real good.”

Lynch ran through the ME’s findings for Starshak.

“How far’s that park from the church?” Starshak asked.

“Got the street, parking lot, another street, the trees in off that a bit. Gotta be three hundred yards anyway, probably more.”

“Long way. Right in the heart, you said?”

“Yeah.” Lynch thinking a minute. “Hey, you used to be SWAT, right?”

“Yeah,” Starshak answered.

“What about one of the department sharpshooters? Think one of them might be able to break this down?”

“It’s an idea. Let me make a couple calls.”

Lynch went back out to his desk. Liz had left his place early that morning, wanting to get home, clean up, change. Lynch feeling funny standing naked in his kitchen, trading phone numbers. Lynch pulled out her card and called her office. Got her voice mail.

“Hey, Liz. It’s Lynch. Just thought I should call. Listen, I’m not that good at this stuff in person, so I’m not going to go on to some machine, but if you’d like to get together, get some dinner or something, call my cell. I’m, you know, glad you called last night.”

Starshak walked out, handed Lynch a piece of paper. “Guy named Darius Cunningham. He’s off today, but he’ll meet you over at Sacred Heart at 10.00.”