CHAPTER 27
12:09 AM
August 12
The owner kicked the detectives and the homeless woman out when closing time rolled around. Qween took her cart and disappeared in the shuddering roar and squealing sparks from an overhead El train. Ed and Sam barely noticed.
Ed said he’d walk home and Sam hailed a cab. Vague promises were made to follow up with Qween the next day, but they both knew it was bullshit. Sam fell into the cab and promptly fell asleep.
Ed told the cabbie Sam’s address and knocked on the hood. He headed east, crossing Wacker, then the Chicago River. He lived in a condo on Clinton that overlooked the diesel-choked Metra and Amtrak train yard, the only reason he could afford the mortgage.
His girlfriend, Carolina, had been working the early-morning shift at a pancake place up on Belmont while Ed dropped her son off at his middle school. She would pick him up in the afternoon, spend time with him in evening, and if Ed was on duty, her mother would take over while Carolina went to law school at night. Ed whispered good night and gave Grandma a peck on the cheek and slap on her ass as the grinning woman left.
His wife had died years earlier and his own children were grown with families of their own, scattered out around the suburbs. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and went to sit on the patio. At night, the train yard wasn’t so bad. Only a couple of trains rolled by every half hour. He sat back, trying to focus on the reflections of the lights on the oily surface of the Chicago River—a dizzying array of spectral rainbows—and hoping he wouldn’t have any dreams about the subway tunnels, he fell asleep.
The cabbie woke Sam up and said, “Eighteen-fifty, please.”
Sam gave the guy a twenty and crawled out. He stood on the sidewalk and realized he didn’t want to go inside and sit in the darkness and listen to the drip in the sink, the whine from the air-conditioning unit in the bedroom window, and nothing else. Around three, the dripping would be overshadowed by the muffled industrial noises from the dry-cleaning business downstairs.
He checked the time as the cab left. He knew of a liquor store about six or seven blocks away and set off. The night was cooling off and the air smelled decent. After walking a block, he felt good. The nap in the cab had really paid off. It was the first real sleep he’d had in a week, at least. He bought a pint of vodka, walked another half of a block, and ascended the Western Brown Line station. He sat in the shadows and cracked his bottle, drank deeply.
After a while, the next inbound El came along, so he stowed the bottle and boarded. He got off at Belmont and watched the traffic for a while. He took a few more pulls from the bottle. The next southbound train was nearly empty. In his car, there was only a Latino couple whispering and giggling and an older Asian guy trying not to fall asleep. Sam took a seat in the back. No one else got on at Fullerton.
Just past Armitage, the train descended into the tunnels under Chicago.
Sam pulled out the bottle and spent the night riding the subway, watching his reflection bounce and flicker against the rushing darkness beyond the window, wondering how many dead rats were out there.
CHAPTER 28
8:15 AM
August 12
The maintenance man in charge of the day shift found Herman curled up under his desk. He frowned. This was not like Herman. As long as he’d known the man, Herman had never slept through the night on the job. He knew for a fact that Herman sometimes took a nap, but only after he had finished his work, and needed rest before heading off to drive a cab. The day shift man didn’t give a damn if Herman slept or not as long as the work was done, but he’d found the floor buffer in the middle of the hallway.
“Herman, Herman.” He shook Herman’s shoulder. “You can’t sleep here, man. Come on.”
Herman jolted awake and stared around, blinking rapidly, as if he didn’t know where he was. He tried to swallow. His eyes finally focused on the day shift man. He croaked out a question.
The day shift man didn’t understand him. “I don’t know what the problem is, man, but you’d better get up and finish the floor before anybody else gets in, you know?” He held out his hand.
Herman smacked it away and scrambled out from under the desk. He made a sound halfway between a whimper and a deep whine, and backed away from the other man.
“Herman, you okay? You want me to call somebody? A doctor, maybe?”
Herman spun and shuffled quickly down the corridor, disappearing into the shadows.
He raced up a utility staircase and burst into a corridor padded with thick carpet and bright fluorescent lights that burned his eyes. He stumbled along, hand slapping at door handles. They were all locked. He finally found a supply closet and fell inside. He crawled under the shelves to a dark corner and pressed his face into it, trying to quell the sobs threatening to erupt. The pain in his head was excruciating. The pain obliterated everything else, his job, his appearance, any rational thought. He couldn’t even follow a logical sequence of ideas to try and understand what was wrong with him. He scraped his fingernails against the rough paint and pushed his forehead even harder into the corner.
Gradually, a new sensation crept up underneath the pain. Something bubbled mischievously under his skin. For the briefest moment, he almost felt relief, as this new feeling tipped the balance and he found that he could focus on something other than the agony spiking through his head.
But the sweet reprieve was gone in the time it took to exhale.
And then he wished he could have the pain back.
A sinister itch crawled up his back, starting just under his buttocks and snaking its way along his spine. He’d never felt anything like it before. It was maddening, as if a spider with feathers for legs was gently pulling itself along the inside of his skin.
He twisted his right arm back and frantically clawed at the whispering, teasing irritation. The second his fingers dragged the fabric of his shirt across the bare skin, disturbing the thick hair on his back, the itch got a thousand times worse. He heard something, something indistinct from a great distance, and didn’t realize it was his own moan of despair.
He ripped his shirt over his head and dropped it. Twisting, he tried to reach the bad spots, his thick, stubby fingers failing to provide any relief. The blunt fingernails finally tore the surface of skin, and blood trickled down his back.
It made the itch worse.
He was openly sobbing now, slapping, clawing, raking his nails across the skin on his back as far as he could stretch. The itch, though, kept dancing away, waiting mockingly just out of reach. He struggled to his feet, pawing through the shelves for something, anything that he could use to scratch.
His fingers closed over a pair of industrial scissors with foot-long shears.
Without hesitation, he shoved the sharp points up into the spot between his shoulder blades. He rubbed them vigorously back and forth. A curious burning relief slowly spread along his spine and he closed his eyes. His breathing sounded unnaturally loud in the cramped closet.
The itching under his buttocks grew worse. He shifted his grip on the scissors, gripping them halfway up the shears. He stabbed the back of his right thigh, and raked the points from side to side. The blades tore through his pants and flesh like a fork sinking through the skin that forms on pudding as it cools. He paid no attention to blood seeping down the back of his legs, staining the khaki fabric a dark red.