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He allows one shoulder to lift. “Don’t look for no war. One’s declared, I don’t back down. Can’t back down, am I right?”

“Who declared the war?” I ask.

He likes that, chuckles, runs his tongue over his teeth. “Who you think?”

“The King,” Carla says.

“Smart, too,” he says to me, gesturing to Carla.

Jericho Hooper is the leader of the largest street gang currently operating in the city, the Imperial Gangster Nation. King Jericho, so it goes, or just the King.

“How do you know it was Jericho?” I ask.

“Oh, the brother wrote me a full confession.” Andre pats the cushions around him. “Gotta be here somewhere. He told me to give it to the po-lice when they show up.”

He’s pretty happy with himself. But it’s all a show. He’s feeling serious heat. The Hustlers don’t have the firepower to take on the Nation. Andre knows that better than anyone.

Problem is, it won’t stop him from retaliating. He doesn’t have a choice now. Jericho killed two of his men in audacious fashion. If he doesn’t answer, his blood’s in the water.

“Give us the shooter,” says Carla, “and we tie it back to Jericho. Put your competition outta business. Without you guys shooting each other up.”

Andre puts a finger to his temple. “Now, why didn’t I thinka that?” He leans back against the couch, puts his feet up on an ottoman.

I kick the ottoman out from under his legs, forcing him forward.

“Andre, use your brain,” I say. “You go to war with Jericho, you lose. What you’re not seeing is that you have a chance to win.”

“We catch the shooter,” says Carla, “maybe we flip him. He gives up Jericho.”

Andre’s not buying it. “Ain’t nobody gonna flip on Jeri-Curl.”

“You sure?” I ask. “Why not give it a chance? If we can make that happen, you don’t have to do anything. We do your work for you. We put Jericho behind bars. And you don’t lose any more soldiers.”

He takes his time. It’ll be on his terms, after he runs his tongue over the inside of his cheek some more, pops in a toothpick and works it around.

“Give us forty-eight hours,” I say. “Don’t do anything for forty-eight hours. Give us time to catch the shooter.”

He pulls out the toothpick, looks at the floor. “Twenty-four,” he says. “And then there has to be an answer, know what I’m sayin’?”

I look at Carla. Twenty-four hours before both sides start shooting.

“Think we can solve this in twenty-four hours?” Carla asks me once we’re back in the car.

“I can think of one way,” I say. “But it’s a long shot.”

I look through my phone directory for a beat reporter with the Sun-Times . “I need a favor,” I say. “I need a phone number.”

Chapter 15

DISCO CURBS his car along Monticello in Albany Park, the city’s northwest side. Gets out of the car, buttons his suit jacket, and walks down the alley. He passes four garages. The fifth one is open, a Range Rover parked inside. He stands still for a moment to make sure he isn’t surprising anyone.

Then he walks into the garage and gets in the car, hit immediately with the scent of aftershave.

“You fucked up. You fucked up royally.”

Disco hasn’t even planted his ass in the seat before the rebuke comes. “The little girl was inside the house. I did not see her.”

Dennis Porter is dressed in a cotton shirt and dark slacks, a baseball cap on his head of gray hair. He was at home having dinner with his family, apparently, when Disco called him from the restaurant. “Well, it’s a fuckin’ shit show now. They’re running it out of SOS, the shiny new top-notch crew. You better find a way to fix this.”

“ You better find a way,” says Disco. “You’re the cop.”

Second in command of Internal Affairs, to be precise. Captain Dennis Porter has proved himself both useful and resourceful. Disco is going to need both of those traits.

Porter wags a finger. “You don’t pay me enough to work miracles. You killed a fuckin’ toddler . You didn’t even tell me you were gonna do this.”

“I need your permission now?” Disco comes back. Always the battle over who’s in charge—the dirty cop or the gangster paying him.

“You got some nasty business you gotta take care of, yeah, you tell me first. Maybe I can show you a better way. And you couldn’t have picked a worse way.”

“It was an accident. A mistake.”

“Yeah, your mistake, not mine. Not my problem.”

Always the negotiator, Porter. He’s not really saying he won’t help. He’s saying it won’t come for free. He’ll want a bonus.

Disco grabs Porter’s forearm, a vise grip. Porter turns and looks at him, first with a cop’s indignation, aggression, but his expression quickly softens, adjusting to the reality that the situation is a lot more complicated than that.

“My problem,” says Disco, “is your problem.”

“The fuck are you doing?”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“Let go…of my fucking arm.” Jaw clenched, lips hardly moving, watery eyes.

“Not until you say it, Denny. Say it for Amy. Say it for Jay and Laura.”

“You don’t want to threaten me, my friend.”

Porter can play it tough, but he has to know that Disco’s right. He can trust Disco for one thing and one thing only—to pay him handsomely to protect Disco’s business. If he fails in that regard and Disco goes down, why wouldn’t Disco make life easier on himself and cut a deal to implicate the cop who protected him?

The dirty cop’s dilemma: once you’re in with the bad guys, you’re in all the way.

“Yeah, we gotta figure this out together, okay? Fuck.” Porter yanks his arm free, Disco willingly releasing it. It was close enough to a full concession.

The stick having been shown, it’s time for the carrot. Disco hands over an envelope full of cash. “This is double the usual. Because of our problem.”

The money usually helps Porter’s attitude. Porter takes it, counts it, confirms it. Nods his head with reluctance.

“You have someone in SOS?” asks Disco.

It takes a moment for Porter to recover his pride. “I got someone everywhere,” he says. “It’s the benefit of my position.” As Porter always likes to say, Internal Affairs knows everything.

“Who is your source at SOS?”

“My source is my source. You don’t need to know. I ever let you down before?”

No, he hasn’t. If Porter’s capability wasn’t clear before, it certainly was after he managed to survive the fallout of the recent CPD scandal, which took down several members of the Bureau of Internal Affairs.

“I got an idea,” Porter says. “I got a way to fix this. But it’s gotta be quick. And it’s gotta be you that does the heavy lifting.”

“Me? That will not work.”

“Well, it’s gonna hafta work, pal. This thing’s a fuckin’ nightmare. My people can’t be anywhere near it. We’ll put the finishing touches on it. But the legwork? It’s gotta be you.”

No sense in arguing. This is where Porter excels. If Porter says it has to be Disco, it has to be Disco.

“And it’s gotta be tonight,” says Porter.

Chapter 16

THE VIBE is off tonight, she notices as soon as she walks in.

The Hole in the Wall is a copper’s joint, co-owned by three guys who were on the job and put in their twenty. Half-off drinks for the men and women in blue, which is around 90 percent of the population in here, so it’s not so much a discount for cops as it is a double charge on civilians for the privilege of mingling.

The mood’s typically loud and merry, a place to blow off steam, to bitch about department politics or the YouTube crowd just itching to catch coppers in a bad moment, out of context, so they can post it on social media. You’re among friends at the Hole.