And of course, he had a framed print of goddamned Wrigley Field at night. It figured.
Lee arched one thick black eyebrow. “You hearing me, or is this some kinda big joke to you?”
“I hear you.”
“I sure as hell hope so. You play by my rules, everybody’s happy. You got yourself a cushy job until you retire and get to be a dad to your little girl. Fuck it up, and I promise you you’ll never see her again. Hell, you’ll be lucky you don’t end up in prison. Your job is to keep me happy. That’s all you gotta worry about. And keeping me happy means steering clear of any goddamn nosy social workers, or anybody else that gets curious, especially any cock-sucking reporters.”
He lit a cigarette, blew smoke at the ceiling. He was dressed in a tux, with the bow tie rakishly open and hanging on either side of the unbuttoned collar. He probably thought he looked like James Bond after a casual night gambling in Monaco. There was some heavy-duty charity dinner with all the heavyweights in town at the brand-spanking-new Serenity Hotel, with proceeds supposedly going to help needy children. Maybe get his picture in the Trib’s RedEye.
The boys with the real power, and the true recipients of most of the money, wouldn’t show up in the paper. They wouldn’t get within ten feet of a camera.
Politics in Chicago.
Lee took another drag. Tommy guessed that the city ban on indoor smoking in public buildings didn’t apply to this particular office. “Shit. It’s not a bad deal, when you stop and think about it. Let’s cut through the bullshit. A piece of ass like Kimmy . . . fuck me, you didn’t think she’d stick with you forever, did you? Jesus Christ. I hope not. No friggin’ way. Hell, I can’t believe she stuck with you for this long.”
Tommy had been shocked when a whole army of lawyers accompanied Kimmy to the divorce proceedings. He’d figured they’d sign some papers, agree to share custody of Grace, and it would be all simple and clean. He hadn’t even thought to bring a lawyer.
It hadn’t taken long for Tommy to get a queasy feeling, like he was the only one at a party who didn’t know anybody and all the guests were starting to lick their lips and look at him like he was going to be the main course for dinner. It had been obvious that the lawyers and the judge were all good friends and golfing buddies. There had been no one else in the courtroom, so they hadn’t even tried to pretend.
The judge had awarded Kimmy sole custody of Grace, and hit Tommy with an absurdly high child-support bill. There was no way he could afford to pay, not with his old job. Everybody knew this, and Tommy felt stupid for not figuring out the deal sooner. Not a day later, a job offer had come through, an offer to work for the City of Chicago, as an employee for the Department of Streets and Sanitation. His salary had seemed suspiciously high, until he’d realized that most of his pay would be taken out for child support and various other contributions to the union and the city.
“So.” Lee stubbed out his cigarette. “I’m going to assume we have an understanding.”
“Sure.”
“Then I suggest you get moving. Don’t want to be late clocking in your first night.”
Tommy stood and headed for the door.
“I hope we don’t need to talk ever again.” Lee said. “Fact is, I don’t want to look at you. Makes me a little sick, thinking about you and Kimmy. Tell Ray down at the desk I said you didn’t have to sign out. Let’s keep this meeting off the books.”
CHAPTER 6
10:01 PM
December 27
The bat wheeled through the freezing night air, senses reeling. Once free of the nylon pouch, it had flitted about the terminal, keeping to the shadows. The giant Christmas trees erected throughout the terminal offered no clear openings, and the lights confused it, so the bat rose higher and eventually squeezed into a crack between one of the futuristic struts and the ceiling. It tried eating a spider, but found the taste to be bitter and alien. The brief respite allowed the bat to catch its breath, but it couldn’t remain hidden much longer. It needed warmth and water.
The six-year-old female sheath-tailed bat was one of the most endangered animals in the world. Experts estimated the total population to be less than a hundred mature individuals. She had been caught with a fishing net strung over the fissure where the colony lived on the Seychelles Island, just north of Madagascar. She weighed close to ten grams, and wasn’t much bigger than a young mouse.
She was sick.
She was having trouble swallowing, and she had scraped bloody furrows in her pelt with her claws and teeth in response to the infuriating parasites that crawled through her fur. Arching her back, she tried to scrape the invaders off on the sharp edge of the angled ceiling, but they just flattened themselves against her pale skin or took refuge under her wings. A growing restlessness drove her from her perch, and she fluttered through the terminal once more. She had known fear for so long, it was simply a part of her now, but the disorienting panic kept her moving.
She found a sliver of a crack near the top of the vast wall of windows that faced north, and tasted unfamiliar air. Wanting only to leave the stale, dry atmosphere of the terminal behind, she squeezed through and immediately panicked. The temperature hovered around twenty-eight degrees, and she had never been this cold. She beat her wings harder, swooping through the hurricane of flashing red and blue lights that covered the inner drive of O’Hare.
She rose higher, soaring out over the parking lot. She could sense the tectonic vibrations emanating from the city below, urging her higher and higher. The bat had never encountered snow before, and the drifting flakes wreaked havoc with her echolocation organs. A roaring filled her ears, and the horrible, shrieking engines of an incoming jet drove her away from the airport.
She turned east, instinctively drawn to the vast stillness of Lake Michigan. For a while, she simply glided, surfing the bitter winds that pushed her to the southeast. The adrenaline that had surged through her compact body began to ebb. Her tiny heart hitched twice, her wings folded, and she dropped, tumbling through snowy skies into the vast forest of concrete and steel and harsh lights of downtown.
The free fall squeezed the last dregs of adrenaline into her system and she found the power to spread her wings and soar, whirling in an ever-downward spiral. She smacked into a frost-covered window, bounced off, and plummeted to the street. She found her wings once again, and tried to aim for the darkness along the Chicago River, but the draft from a passing El train sent her spinning into the girders that held up Upper Wacker Drive.
She fell like a stone into the frozen gutter along the edge of Lower Wacker.
Her heart convulsed again, and she pulled her wings close. Headlights splashed over her and moved on, leaving her bathed in the sickly yellow light from the irregular fluorescent bulbs. The panic and sickness had driven her consciousness deep into the recesses of her mind, and she was only dimly aware of the icy concrete.