Marcus Sakey - Good People

Tom and Anna Reed. It had to be. Which meant that since yesterday,he’d had information that might have prevented this from happening. In all the messages he’d left, he’d never said anything about the money because he hadn’t wanted to spook them into running. He’d pretended he was going to set up the drug dealer, when really he just wanted to lure Tom and Anna somewhere. Wanted to grab them himself and make the big arrest. Be a hero, get his name in the paper, jump clear of his lieutenant and the rest of the politicians.

Which made this his fault. At least partly. If he’d told the truth, things might have gone differently. A dead cop might still be alive.

He’d screwed up before, but never like this.

Halden took a deep breath and started toward the security office, trying to figure out how to share what he knew in a way that didn’t make him the scapegoat for the whole mess.

Eight men were crammed inside the tiny room, talking in low voices. Among them the deputy chief of D’s, his boss’s boss. Halden had caught his eye, started to gesture him over, when a thought hit.

Maybe there was still a way to save this. To come out on top, a hero.

Being a detective was about asking the right question. Right now he was focusing on his own mistake. But that wasn’t what Tom and Anna would be thinking about. Their plan had just backfired horribly. So the real question was, what would they do now?

With the question reframed that way, the answer was obvious. After they knew they were safe, they’d remember that they weren’t criminals. Not in the real meaning of the word. So they’d call the police. And not just any cop – they’d call one who knew them, who would understand their circumstances.

They would call him .

Halden spun on his heel, went back down the corridor. It was a dangerous game, sure. But he could pull it off. Go to the bosses not with hat in hand, but with two people from the incident, a bag full of money, and a complete explanation for what had happened and why. Lemonade from lemons. Instead of being a scapegoat, get a promotion and a pay bump and a hell of a lot closer to that cabin up west of Minocqua. And all he had to do was wait. And pray.

“WELL, that didn’t go quite how you planned.” Marshall sounded like he might have been trying for a joke, but didn’t quite hit it, his voice tight and shoulders tense.

Jack said, “We got out, didn’t we?” The handles of the duffel bag were heavy against his palms, the bulk bumping his knee as they walked through the rain. The heft of the thing felt good, right. He’d worked hard for it. He knew it wouldn’t bring Bobby back – he wasn’t a fucking idiot – but it was something.

Sirens screamed toward them, but Jack held himself steady. The car blew past in a spray of water and flashing light, heading east toward the mall three blocks away. After he’d killed the cop, they’d hit the apartments across the parking lot. A simple matter of jimmying a window lock and they were off the street. Marshall had snagged a black tee from the owner’s dresser and balled the shirt of the fake uniform deep in the kitchen trash. Then they strolled out the front door and down the steps like they owned the place, right past a prowler car coming up to blockade the back of the mall.

“We did get out,” Marshall said. “And we do have the money. But I just feel like there was something that didn’t go quite right. What was it?” He paused theatrically, then put a finger up in a eureka gesture. “Oh yeah – you shot a cop .”

“What did you want me to do? Ask nice if he’d let us walk?” The bag was getting heavy, but his other arm throbbed from the reopened cut. The bandage on his left arm was staining a slow scarlet. “Cop’s just a guy in a funny hat.”

“Chicago PD, man, they’re brutal when one of theirs goes down. They’ll never stop looking for us.”

“They’d never have stopped anyway. Besides, it’s done.”

They turned into the drugstore parking lot. The truck was a beater, an old Ford F150 they’d bought off a Western Avenue lot for a grand in cash. They’d left the stolen Honda parked on a pleasant neighborhood street, where it would likely sit for months before anybody noticed it. No sense pulling off a deal and then getting nabbed if the highway patrol happened to punch their plates. He swung the door open with a creak, tossed the money behind the driver’s seat, then leaned over to unlock Marshall’s side. Fired the engine, turning the heat on full blast to battle the chill from his wet clothes. “Just one more thing to do.”

“What’s that?”

“See to my favorite couple.” They’d been a pain in the ass, almost gotten him killed twice. And while he recognized that it didn’t make strict logical sense, some part of him held them responsible for Bobby’s death. It had something to do with Will Tuttle being dead, because the guy he’d looked forward to getting revenge on had shuffled off swift and sweet instead of slow and painful. There was a word for the thing he was doing, something he’d seen on daytime TV, one of those psychology words. Projection? Transference? Whatever. Since he couldn’t get Will, he wanted Tom and Anna.

“Huh?” Marshall looked over sharply. “The cops’ll have them.”

“Maybe.” Last he’d seen, they’d been running down a back stairwell. “Maybe they walked out the same door we did.”

“Even if that’s true, we have the money. We don’t need them.”

“They saw us. They can ID us.”

“Come on, man, they’re doing that right now. You really want to be in town once our faces start flashing on TV?” He shook his head. “You shot a cop . Chicago just got way too small for us.”

“But-”

“You do this, you’re on your own.”

The line fell heavy. Jack looked sideways at his partner. Saw the stare, the sincerity. Not like Marshall to back away from a fight. It made Jack pause.

Truth was, the guy had a point. They had the money, and their freedom, and there really wasn’t anything they could do about what Tom and Anna knew, not now. It irked, the idea those two yahoos might walk away unscathed, might not have to pay for stealing from him, for trying to game him. But he’d learn to live with it. Jack sighed. “All right. Forget it,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Marshall blew a breath. “Amen.”

Jack put the clutch to the floor and forced the stick into reverse. The truck coughed and shook, but moved. Marshall pulled the pistol from his holster and popped the clip. “You recognize that black dude?” He squinted, counting rounds. “He was with the drug dealer. The night we took down the Star.”

“No shit?”

“I’m pretty sure. Didn’t recognize the other two, though.”

“What the hell were they doing there?”

“Dunno. One more reason to get clear.”

Jack nodded. He hated leaving all this shit undone, all these loose ends, too many of them personal. But they’d won. That would have to be enough.

“Now,” Marshall said, slamming home the clip and holstering the pistol, “let’s see how we did, eh?” He fumbled behind the seat, dragged the duffel bag up to his lap. Jack turned the truck south. They could take Halsted down, pick up the freeway at Lake. Be in Saint Louis by afternoon. From there they could flip for the truck, split the take, shake hands, and part ways. Marshall wanted to go south, to Florida, but Miami was no kind of place for a middle-aged Polack. No, forget Miami, forget Chicago. Forget Tom and Anna Reed, forget the Star and the police and the drug dealer. The time had come to head west and hang up his spurs.

Then he heard a sound from Marshall, a kind of choking inhale. “Jack?” He had the bag in his lap, the top held wide, money bunched up in his fists, hundred-dollar bills green and crumpled, and beneath that, revealed now, the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times , and the edge of one beneath that, and beneath that. For a second, Jack just stared, trying to understand what he was seeing, how his money had turned into newsprint.