The driver reluctantly stopped and refused to make eye contact as Ed got ahead of him. “That’s right, asshole,” Sam yelled into the bullhorn, aiming it at the Lexus. “Next time you see lights, you fucking remember to pull over.”
Streets inside the Loop were squeezed down to one lane, blocked with red and white sawhorses. The few pedestrians moved with an urgent purpose along empty sidewalks. They certainly moved faster than the vehicles. Ed and Sam’s car crept forward with the pace of some old lady with a walker out on a sunny day in no particular hurry.
Ed squeezed the steering wheel until Sam was afraid it might snap. Ed said, “This is gonna take all night. We’re never gonna find her going this slow.”
“Fuck it then,” Sam said. He tapped his badge. “We got ourselves an all-access backstage pass. Park anywhere you feel like. Let’s go for a walk.”
Ed pulled into the right hand turn lane at the intersection of Madison and State and killed the engine. Ed and Sam got out and stretched. The cars behind them waiting to make a right immediately started honking, but Ed reached back in and hit the spinning lights. The rest of the drivers behind him didn’t like it much, but at least they stopped hitting their horns. They angrily waited for their turn to pull back into traffic and finally turn right once they were past the detectives’ car. Sam waved as they went past.
Lee emptied the rest of the bottle of red wine into his glass. He set the bottle down harder than he’d intended, making a loud thunking noise on his glass dining table. Kimmy glanced at the empty bottle, but said nothing, focusing on her own plate. Good. She’d been a bitch lately, and he was in no fucking mood to listen to her nag, tonight especially.
He hadn’t hit her. Yet. Their relationship wasn’t that far along. But if she kept pushing him, by God, she was going to find out in a fucking hurry that he expected his women to keep their mouths open in the bedroom and zipped shut everywhere else.
Grace pushed soggy spaghetti noodles around her plate and made a face. “I wanted chicken strips,” she said for the third time that evening.
“I’ve already told you,” Kimmy said, “no one is delivering tonight. You’re lucky that I had enough to make spaghetti. Now be quiet and eat your dinner.” She looked up at Lee. “I hope it turned out okay. My mom made it all the time for us growing up. It’s not as good as hers, but I hope it’s okay.”
Lee gave a noncommittal grunt. The meal had been awful. Who the fuck serves peas with spaghetti? But there was no point in making things worse. He slid his plate away, making room for his elbows. He swirled the wine in his glass, just for something to do. It beat checking his phone yet again for a call from his uncle.
Grace said quietly, “I hope Daddy is okay.”
That about tore it. Lee drained his glass, went to pour another, and realized the bottle was empty. He couldn’t remember if he had another bottle in the wine cabinet in the pantry or not. Typical. The fucking city was falling apart around him and he was stuck with this stupid cunt and her kid without any alcohol.
“I told you to be quiet and eat your dinner,” Kimmy said. She tried to break the tension with Lee. “I used the whole-wheat noodles from Whole Foods, you know, to try and keep it healthy for you.”
“I was wondering why it tasted like shit,” Lee said. He threw his linen napkin at the table, knocking over the empty glass, and stomped into the living room. This room was the whole reason he’d bought the condo. All he could think of when he first took in the view was how much he wanted to bring people up to his place and show it off.
Harbor Point was perched at the north end of Grant Park. Lee’s condo was on the fifty-first floor and had a southwestern view. The floor-to-ceiling windows allowed him to watch the sun set over Chicago’s skyline every night. Tonight, the sun was nearly down, leaving the buildings of the Loop in silhouette. The remaining sunlight behind them was still strong enough to wash away any lights in the individual windows, giving the impression that Chicago was constructed of monolithic monuments, standing silent guard along the lake.
He blinked, shifting his focus from the darkening city to his own reflection as it grew stronger and more defined in the fading light. He didn’t like the furtive, hunted look in his eyes so he turned his attention to the sixty-inch plasma above the fireplace and watched the news for a while.
Things hadn’t gotten any better. Every goddamn channel in the world was focused on Chicago. It made the city look bad.
Fucking rats.
At least the federal government was in control. It wasn’t official yet, and it might never be official, but the CDC owned Chicago right now. So whatever went down, Lee wasn’t responsible. He couldn’t be held accountable. Shit happens. It wasn’t his fault. There was no way it could come around to bite Lee on the ass. And if things went real south, the boys in power always pinned everything on some pissant, second cousin to somebody low, and crucified him in the media. They’d do anything they could to aim the public’s hate at one guy while the rest scurried for cover.
Lee turned back to his reflection in the windows. He didn’t think he’d ever been this close to the real power in the federal government. It was like nothing he’d ever seen. All these guys had to do was snap their fingers, and entire streets got shut down like it was nothing. His reflection didn’t reassure him. It had the opposite effect. He looked weak. He looked finished.
As much as he didn’t want to admit it, it suddenly occurred to him that to these feds, he might be a small fish. Small enough that he could be the scapegoat. For the first time, Lee faced the uncomfortable truth that they could blame everything on him.
He wished his uncle would call.
CHAPTER 43
8:41 PM
August 13
Sam drank in the relative peace and quiet of the city. The horns had tapered off, and all the flashing police lights gave the darkening city a festive feel, like it was some obscure holiday, the offspring of Halloween and the Fourth of July. And normally, at this relatively early time of night, eight o’clock, the pedestrian walkway, over twenty feet above the river, would be half-filled with smokers, getting those last puffs in before they got to their cars after a long ride home on the Metra. Tonight it was empty.
Sam popped a piece of nicotine gum into his mouth and relaxed on the bench, enjoying the view. Ed waited next to him, staring at the blacktop under his feet, ignoring the view. Ed was troubled, Sam could see tell, but he didn’t know what to say.
They’d passed Cook County General on their walk. The place was now surrounded by sawhorses with blinking lights, all wrapped in razor wire and supported with sandbags. It looked more like a barrack in Afghanistan than a hospital in Chicago.
“Where’s the goddamn media for this shit?” Ed had asked.
They watched as several ambulances pulled into the emergency drive. Sam whistled low, as soldiers, not paramedics, hopped out and escorted the gurneys into the emergency room. The ambulances took off, lights flashing, sirens going.
It was Sam who noticed the late-model sedan with the tinted windows parked at the intersection of Wacker and Monroe. He caught the silhouettes of hulking figures inside as the ambulance roared past. Ed wanted to go over, show them his badge, see what the hell they were doing. With everything going on, he was feeling powerless, and wanted to bust some skulls.
Sam cautioned against it. He got a bad vibe from the car. If they went over, shoving their badges around, they might make themselves more of a target. All they’d do is give those soldiers an excuse to fan out through the streets and hunt them down. And there was no way they would stand a chance against that kind of firepower.