Tod Goldberg - Gangsterland

“Probably,” Poremba said.

“That’s it?” Jeff said. “Probably?”

“When you were running your unit,” Poremba said, “how many CIs did you have?”

“That I trusted? Maybe two.”

“So why should any of this be a surprise? The guppies have always been sacrificed so the big fish could swim.” Poremba took his handkerchief back out of his pocket, blew his nose again, then wadded it up and threw it into the snow.

The door opened behind them, and a young woman stepped out, a little boy in a Bears winter coat holding her hand. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, which meant it was probably Tina Kochel, the elder Mel Kochel’s niece. A college student out in Springfield, if Jeff was remembering the files correctly. Jeff didn’t know who the kid was but immediately felt terrible that this whole day was going to be something he’d possibly remember: the day men with guns showed up during the football game.

Tina took a few steps forward with the boy, but when she saw that Poremba wasn’t going to let her pass, she said, “Am I allowed to walk out of my own damn property?”

“Is this your property?” Poremba asked.

“It’s my family’s property,” she said. “You don’t have any right to do this, you know.”

“Actually,” Poremba said, “we have all the rights we need, or else we wouldn’t be here. That’s how the federal government works. You can rest assured that if we show up somewhere with a bunch of guns, we have the right to do it. The warrant helps, too.”

Jeff was surprised to hear Poremba’s rather snippy response — the girl was obviously scared and of no concern to the FBI, so he was just doing it to keep up appearances. Unlike Biglione, Poremba still appeared to wear human skin, so this all seemed unneeded.

“My son is scared out of his mind,” Tina said. “I’d like to get some of his toys out of my car. Is that against the law? Do I have the right to do that?”

“Sure,” Poremba said. “Where’s your car?”

“The carport,” she said. She pointed to a covered area adjacent to the barn where there were five Ford trucks parked.

Poremba took a step to one side, but just as Tina was about to pass, Jeff put a hand on Tina’s arm and stopped her. “For security reasons,” Jeff said, “why don’t you leave your son with us.”

“This is infuriating,” Tina said.

“Policy,” Jeff said, which wasn’t true, because outside consultants didn’t have any policies. What was true, however, is that he was certain he hadn’t read anything about Tina Kochel having a kid. He would have remembered that. What was also true was that it wasn’t illegal for him to question the kid, but it was illegal for Poremba to do so. The FBI couldn’t interrogate a preschooler — Jeff thought the kid was maybe four — but there was nothing wrong with a stranger doing it.

“Fine,” she said. She kneeled down and took her son’s face in her hands. “I’m going to leave you with these nice men for two minutes. I’ll be right back. Be a good boy and don’t bother them.”

“Okay!” the boy said. Or, essentially, shouted.

Tina stood back up and glared at both Jeff and Poremba. “I know you’re just doing your job, but this is bullshit,” she said.

“Federal agents were killed,” Poremba said, “so we need to follow all leads. As a taxpayer, I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

“It’s the Super Bowl,” she said.

“So imagine how little we want to be here, too,” Jeff said.

Once Tina was out of earshot, Jeff said to Poremba, “Don’t listen to this,” and then he kneeled in front of the boy, so that he was at eye level, and said, “What’s your name? Is it Mel?”

“No!” the boy said, and he stomped his foot. He didn’t seem exactly terrified. What he seemed, in fact, was fairly entertained. Either that, or shouting was his default setting. “That’s my uncle! I’m Nicholas!”

“That’s right,” Jeff said. He looked over his shoulder at Poremba, who was watching this unfold with something like curiosity mixed with horror, but knew enough not to say a word. “That’s right. Your uncle is Mel. Who is your daddy?”

Nicholas stomped his foot again, “My daddy is my daddy!”

“That’s right,” Jeff said. “But do you know his name?”

“Daddy,” Nicholas said, but he didn’t sound terribly convinced that this was true. Odd.

“Where does your daddy live?” Jeff said.

“Heaven,” Nicholas said.

Jeff thought it was somewhat possible that he’d forget Tina Kochel had a kid — she didn’t matter to him in the least, so maybe he’d just seen that she was going to school in Springfield and left it at that — but there was no way he would have overlooked a dead husband. Twenty-five-year-olds didn’t have dead husbands anymore. Or dead fathers of their children, at least.

“Finish up,” Poremba said calmly. “She’s at the car right now.”

He needed about thirty minutes with the kid, really. Maybe with a good child psychologist. But that wasn’t going to happen. “How long has your daddy been in heaven?”

Nicholas shrugged. “Ten years!” he said.

Shit. Shit. Shit. The problem with kids and time is that until they’re about six or seven, the concept of past, present, and future can get fairly muddled. Nicholas was maybe four. Nothing he said was reliable. Nothing he said was admissible, either.

“What did he get you for Christmas?”

“Nintendo,” Nicholas said, “and G.I. Joe and five games and popcorn.”

“Was that the last time you saw him?”

Nicholas nodded once.

“Can you tell me what your daddy looks like?”

“He’s big!” Nicholas said.

“Bigger than me?”

“Bigger than everybody!”

“Taller than me and bigger than Santa?” Jeff said, and he stood up and pushed out his belly.

“Bigger than Santa!” Nicholas said.

“Is your daddy’s name. .” Jeff paused, tried to decide if this was what he really wanted to do to this kid, if this was what he wanted to do to Tina Kochel, if this was what he wanted to give the FBI. Could Fat Monte be this kid’s father?

“Lucy is in heaven, too,” Nicholas said before Jeff could finish his sentence.

“Who is Lucy?”

“My cat,” Nicholas said.

Poremba tapped Jeff on the shoulder once. Jeff turned and saw that Tina was only about thirty feet away now. She was smoking a cigarette and had a small backpack shaped like a tiger slung over one arm. She was pretty, Jeff decided, but not overly so. Her hair was blonde — a dye job, Jeff guessed, since her kid had reddish-brown hair — and she was skinny, with long legs. What did Jeff know about Tina? Nothing, really. Just that she lived and went to college in Springfield. But she was twenty-five. Shouldn’t she have been out of school by now?

“Were you good?” Tina asked Nicholas when she got to the porch.

“He was,” Jeff said. “He told us all about his father.”

Jeff watched the color drain from Tina’s cheeks, which was quite a feat, since it was freezing outside, and her face was flushed red from the wind. “He doesn’t know his father,” she said.

“No?” Jeff said.

“I don’t know who his father is, either, if you have to know,” she said. “And I’m sorry, how is this any of your business?”

“He volunteered the information,” Poremba said. There was nonchalance in his voice that Jeff found oddly comforting. He liked that Poremba understood what was at stake here, too, without anything being spoken.

“He said his father was dead,” Jeff said. “That seems like a strange thing for a kid to say, don’t you think?”

“That’s what I’ve told him,” she said. She reached down and took Nicholas’s hand and started to make her way inside.